Havoc and Retribution
by apchick10
Summary: The struggle between Hel, goddess of death, and Jaycee Strong, mortal telepath and great-granddaughter to Sigyn of Vanaheim, is only just beginning. This is the final book of Jaycee Strong, (started with "Psych the Avengers Out", then "Hel to Pay"). Witness the Avengers and Loki team up to try to rebalance her soul before she decides being the villain has benefits.
1. Something Wicked's Coming

"Was Heimdall specific in his warning?" Thor asks the All-Father.

Galloping across the Bifrost towards Heimdall's post at the edge of Asgard, Odin glances at his son, the thundering of hooves almost drowning his reply. "It matters not what awaits us. We will deal with it when we arrive."

Thor tries not to grunt at the vague response. On his father's other side, his mother rides with them, although not dressed for war. Frigga makes for an imposing sight in her battle regalia and the fact that she is still clothed in her day dress has Thor on edge. Frigga riding with them at all is a cause for concern, even more so when she is along as a peacemaker.

Behind them, the Warriors Three and Sif are bristling for a fight. They are outfitted for war, as are Thor and Odin, but no guards accompany them, and Thor knows this means that the situation is volatile and the All-Father wants to keep it quiet until they can get a handle on the situation.

At the Bifrost portal, they dismount. Odin dismisses the extra guards at the portal with a wave of his spear. Thor adjusts his grip on his hammer as they approach the portal, able to see two silhouettes inside, one with the tall helmet of Heimdall and one kneeling, a prisoner.

As they enter, Heimdall turns his head only, slowly. "All-Father," he says in greeting, his deep voice filling the portal chamber. His sword is level with the kneeling man's throat. Thor feels a shiver of premonition work its way down his spine. The kneeling man looks up slowly with a very tired smile, green eyes flashing under matter and dirty, black hair.

"Well, hello there, family," Loki says.

Behind him, Thor can hear weapons being adjusted. No one moves for a moment, all taking in the sight of the bedraggled trickster god. He doesn't look like he's in good shape. His skin is smeared with ash and old bloodstains, armor gone, shirt ripped in gaping wounds. He holds himself as though he's dealing with abdomen injuries. Thor hates that his first thought is that this is an illusion Loki has cast to win sympathy and bring their guard down.

Frigga has no such doubts. She breaks free from Odin's side and rushes to her adopted son, Heimdall barely able to get his sword out of the way in time for her to fall to her kneels and cradle Loki's face in her hands.

Loki seems just as shocked by her affection as everyone else. "Oh, my son," Frigga whispers, magic blooming from her hands. It's then that Thor knows Loki wears no glamour. Frigga is a sorceress and she taught Loki all of her tricks. If anyone can see through his facades, it is their mother. If Loki has not healed himself yet, it is because he cannot.

Everyone watches as Frigga heals a deep wound in Loki's torso, pulling up his shirt to reveal an incision that went clean through his body, shredding organs. Loki's eyes glaze over for a moment in pain and Thor relents and comes to stand by his brother's side. Loki watches with wary eyes but Thor can see that the smaller man is too exhausted to protest treatment in front of the All-Father and former comrades. He looks older as well, a heavy burden on his shoulders, responsibility weighing him down.

"Loki," Thor says, "Where have you been? What happened that day?"

Loki's eyes shift from Thor to Odin and his lips press together in a thin line. Odin taps the end of his spear on the ground and Thor straightens under his father's steely gaze. "Heimdall said you came with a warning," the All-Father says in his commanding voice.

Loki looks at the king of Asgard with thinly veiled disgust. He almost looks like he wants to let Odin suffer. But his words come out beleaguered instead of sarcastic. "A warning, yes," he sighs. Frigga has finished her ministrations and he staggers to his feet. He weaves slightly and his mother catches him, worry all over her face. "The goddess of death is reborn."

"Hel is alive!?" Thor asks, voice loud in the portal chamber and Loki winces. "But her army fell and the gates of Niflheim have been sealed."

Loki looks at him in confusion, his words slurring. "Sealed?" He staggers, exhausting carving deep furrows into his cheeks. "How could you know that? I was only expelled from Niflheim moments ago."

Frigga sucks in an audible, shocked breath. Thor's eyes are wide and even Odin looks worried. Loki looks between them, piecing it together slowly. "How long has it been since Hel's army fell on Vanaheim?" he asks his brother.

Thor swallows. "Seven months."

Loki's face shatters. "No, that's not right," he murmurs with fervor, a sort of mad light coming into his eyes. "That can't be right."

"Hel's army fell on Vanaheim seven months ago," Thor says quietly, the shock on his brother's face unnerving him. "Last anyone knew, Jay challenged Hel on the cliffs of Clarrappidium. When they vanished, Hel's army fell into disarray only moments later. The Avengers and the Vanir resistance beat Tyr and Hel's armies back from Vanaheim. We found Tyr's body on the cliffs but there was no sign of you, Hel or Jay. Syvlk and Bjern have set up a council to rule Vanahiem in the absence of the Jay, the queen." A small, dazed smile has come across Loki's face. "Loki," Thor says, dread in his voice. "What happened to Jaycee? We're searched for months but there has been no sign of either her or Hel."

Loki gives a mirthless laugh that has chills racing down Thor's spine. "Like I said," he meets Thor's eyes. "The goddess of death is reborn."

Before Thor can ask what he means, a crackling sound draws everyone's attention to the dais in the centre of the room. Lightning arcs from the platform in spurs, illuminating the walls, throwing shadows across the gathered party's faces. "Heimdall?" Odin inquires. The gatekeeper is no where near the platform, his sword in hand at his side. The Bifrost is opening by itself.

Heimdall tries his best to make his way to the platform but the lightning storm in the room intensifies and they all have to back up, even Thor. The edges of the room start spinning, a vortex of rainbow light shimmering at the walls, reality bending around them. Instead of pointing out towards the cosmos, the tunnel pointing from the portal shifts to point straight up. The coruscating rainbow light narrows to a pint and then rebounds outwards, unleashing a massive electromagnetic pulse that slams everyone off their feet to fly across the physical rainbow bridge. The portal chamber itself shatters as a tunnel of rainbow light pounds straight downwards from the heavens.

As the smoke clears, a silhouette can be seen in the rubble of what once was the Bifrost portal chamber. Thor picks himself up as the Warriors Three and Sif untangle themselves. Loki helps Frigga to her feet, his body now pocked with new bruises from having shielded their mother. Only Odin is standing tall, facing the new threat emerging from the dust.

A small woman walks towards them, a ragged dress flowing around her body. Her white and black hair ghosts around her face, hiding her eyes from view. Starlight winks around her. Her hands are bone, her ribcage on the outside of her torso, feet bare. Thor can see that this is not Hel and he gets the dreadful feeling that this is something far worse.

"Who are you, to dare and breach Asgard's borders?" Odin roars, challenging the newcomer.

The woman stops her approach, her dress stilling, no longer moving like a living thing. Her hair moves lazily away from her face and Thor gasps in horror.

"I am your downfall, Aesir king," Jaycee Strong's lips say, her eyes a luminous green, the voice Hel's death rattle. "Welcome me, the goddess of lost souls."

Thor staggers towards her and her head whips towards him. Her mouth cracks into a hideous sneer. "God of Thunder," she purrs, voice raspy and vengeful. "Does this body not suit me well?" Thor raises his hammer, ready to slam it home into the goddess of death. The dark goddess wags an admonishing finger at him. "Oh no, dear," her voice changing to Jay's husky alto. "You wouldn't want to hurt your dear friend, Jaycee, now would you?"

"Who are you?" Thor demands, anger and grief fighting inside his throat so that his voice comes out choked.

The goddess smiles. Her eyes turn towards Loki, slowly, savoring the moment. Her eyes lower slightly, her gaze sultry and taunting. "True. You wouldn't know since I barely gave the trickster enough time to fill you in on the details." She twirls a lock of white hair around her fingers. "Let's just say that Jaycee and I are the same person now. Her body, our souls. She just didn't count of my soul being the stronger of the two."

"No," Loki says, desperation on his face. "It wasn't supposed to be a fight. When your soul and hers rejoined, you were supposed to be balanced." Thor tries to process everything, understanding dawning as he looks at the creature before him. This is what Jay sacrificed. He does not know the whole story but he can understand that Jay and Hel merged somehow in the aftermath of the battle in Clarrappidium.

Hel/Jay shrugs. "She miscalculated. Her fault, not mine," she smiles, "Now if you don't mind, I have important business on Asgard. You bright Aesir need a lesson in what made Vanaheim so powerful when the galaxy was young."

Heimdall is the first to attack, his sword flashing towards Hel, his instinct to protect the realm guiding his blade. She sidesteps, faster than the eye can blink, pushes the heel of her hand and hits the guardian so hard under his chin that he crumples to the ground, out cold.

She licks her lips. "Next?"

The Warriors Three and Sif charge her. She brushes imaginary lint off her shoulder and cracks her bony knuckles, unnerving as everyone can see the bones popping.

Volstaag swings down hard with his axe. Hel/Jay slips underneath it, pushes two quick palm strikes into his solar plexus and is already kicking Fandrall's legs out from under him before Volstaag collapses. Fandrall's rapier doesn't get anywhere near her before she has him flat on his back, using his chest as a spring board to launch herself at Hogun. For a moment it looks like his spiked mace will connect with her body, before she twists unnaturally, grabbing the handle of his own weapon and pushing it hard into his thigh. Sif swings her double-bladed sword for Hel/Jay's head, but she has already moved and as a sweeping kick lands between Sif's ribs, Thor realizes with shocking clarity that she is reading their minds, using Jay's telepathy in way that Jay never would have. It gives her an edge they cannot combat.

Despite his reluctance to hurt Jay, because that's all he can see, Thor winds up his hammer, getting ready to call a lightning strike down that will hopefully incapacitate her long enough for them to sedate her and rein in her powers. But before he can get even a couple of rotations, she reaches out towards him, and pushes hard telekinetically. He goes flying backwards, struggling to right himself.

Loki does not attack, and Frigga stays at his side, even though they can both defend themselves. But the All-Father will not stand for this type of threat to his dominance and he levels his spear at the goddess.

Odin stabs his spear towards her, the spearhead flashing in the starlight, the blade deadly sharp, having seen battles across the cosmos. For a second Loki thinks that strike will land. The goddess smiles.

Hel or Jay, or whoever she is now, grabs the spear as it slices across her palm. She closes her bone hand around the blade, metacarpals clicking against the metal. Standing upright, she grins at Odin and snaps the famous spearhead off between the fingers of one hand.

The one-eyed king of Asgard is speechless. The Warriors Three all have their jaws on the bridge, Thor stunned, hammer limp in hand. "Impossible," Volstaag gasps. The rest of the spear dissolves into fragments, nothing more than a broken relic.

The dark goddess flicks shards away with nonchalance. "Not that this isn't diverting, All-Father," she says, flicking pieces of his broken weapon from her dress. "But I have business to attend to."

Rainbow light swirls around her and with a flash, the goddess disappears into a portal. "Did she just conjure the Bifrost?" Fandrall asks incredulously. "That's not possible."

"Where did she go?" Hogun snarls, his mace in hand, scanning the skies.

There is a flash of rainbow light on the horizon and they can all just make out the silhouette of the goddess as she descends towards the Circlets of Sigyn.

"Oh, her poor lost soul," Frigga whispers, only loud enough for Loki to hear. "Her mind is scattered and vengeful."

"Thor," Loki demands. "A lift?"

Understanding his meaning, Thor grasps Loki's forearm and takes off, dragging his brother through the air behind him. They shoot for the Circlets of Sigyn, zooming in to land next to the dark goddess wearing the face of a former friend.

She turns to look at them, bare feet tracing the patterns in the stone platform. "It's fitting you should watch this," she says, sentimentality, or something fake and similar creeping into her voice. The Circlets move above her, the rune marks on the ground glittering in response to her presence. "You were here when Sigyn set this in motion."

"Jaycee," Thor starts but the goddess snaps at him, her dress whipping around her.

"I am NOT Jaycee," the woman snarls. "I am better than she ever was. Stronger, more powerful. She was too weak to use her gifts, but I am not."

Before he can warn Thor, a telekinetic burst, fringed in rainbow light rips from the dark goddess. The force of the blast sends Thor spiraling to hit of the panels of the Circlets with a definitive gong. The god of Thunder hits the ground hard, struggling to get back up.

Loki watches her, struggling to control his own horror and grief. When she accepted Hel's soul that day, seven months ago, she thought she was balancing their souls, righting a mistake from the history of Vanaheim. Instead Jay and Sigyn are smothered by Hel, the goddess of death slowly killing the two women he loved.

Either sensing he's no threat, or saving him for later, Hel/Jay focuses all of her energy on the ground of the Circlets. She closes her eyes, hair rippling in a breeze only she can feel. Rainbow light glows across her arms, up through her hair, winding outwards from her, towards the stars. She looks like the heart of a nebula. Loki doesn't even understand what he is seeing. Jay's telekinesis and telepathy with Hel's control of the Bifrost is a terrible combination of powers and he is seeing it manifest.

The power gathering around her expands and then collapses into her body and she slams her hands into the ground.

The Circlets of Sigyn, the platform and the runes explode outwards in a shower of stone and magic.

Loki and Thor are thrown into the sea below, chunks of masonry puncturing the water around them. When they surface, there is a faint misty residue in the air and Jay/Hel is shimmering with what appears to be stardust. She has landed in the citadel to the west, unscathed from the blast, hair ghosting around her. Loki and Thor make their way towards her, Thor flying there, Loki forced to swim.

As Loki pulls himself from the ocean surrounding Asgard, he sees Thor go flying backwards, straight through the doors of a great hall, bystanders screaming and fleeing the scene. Hel/Jay spins around, her mind finding his presence. He has no weapons, and he is standing before one of the most powerful goddesses he has ever seen.

She cocks her head at him, walking towards him slowly, sinuously. He tries to conjure an illusion, knowing that it is mostly pointless as she can read his mind. Still he tries but she walks through the fake body double as if it is smoke, under his guard, her face alight with cruel fascination.

Her bony fingers wrap around his neck, tight up on his jaw. She smiles cruelly, pearlescent eyes glowing with malice. One-handed she lifts him up, his legs swinging, her dress moving around her in a frenzied wind. Unable to process what he's seeing, Hel pulls him closes, the goddess of the dead wearing Jaycee's features. "Hello, beloved," she purrs. "Miss me?"

And then she throws him hard into the wall, his spine screaming in pain at the impact. A rainbow portal opens behind her and she steps backwards into space, a gleaming smile on her face.

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_This chapter was mostly written to the song, Something Wicked by Hidden Citizens (feat. FJORA). Give it a listen._


	2. Mental Construct

Thor and Loki spill onto the floor of the Avengers Tower soaking wet, badly bruised and disoriented. Immediately, an alarm sounds, a fairly annoying klaxon that Tony says perfectly mimics a submarine from the fifties. Why he chose that, no one knows. The Bifrost has barely closed before one of the Iron Man suits zooms into the room and reforms itself into a rather tight cage around Thor and Loki, squeezing them back to back, unable to move arms, let alone swing weapons. "How typically childish," Loki says blandly.

The man behind the suit comes strolling around the corner into the common room, a half-finished green smoothie held flippantly in his hand. "You are ruining my rug," Tony informs them.

"I'll ruin much more than that if you don't call off this mechanical monstrosity," Loki tells Tony coolly.

Tony hits a button on his wrist and the suit contracts, pushing into Loki's chest and cheek. In response, Loki points one of his free fingers towards the antique leather sofa, a zap of green light flinging outwards and setting the couch alight.

He can't turn his head, so he fixes an eye on Stark. "Should I do the ottoman next?"

"Not that this isn't fun," Thor grumbles, Loki's elbow in his side. "But I hardly think it's fair to trap us both."

"Rock of Ages has a point," Stark presses another miniscule button and the suit releases them only long enough to release Thor, then folds back around Loki as a suit, immobilizing him.

"This is wasting all of our time," Loki snarls at Stark. "If even I don't have time to trade witty nothings, then-," At a flick of the wrist from Stark, the suit seals itself over Loki's mouth.

"What's up Thor?" Stark turns to the big Asgardian, completely ignoring the death glare that Loki is giving him from his metal prison. "Vacationing on Earth?"

Thor looks at him and the seriousness of Thor's expression is enough for Tony to release the suit's hold on at least Loki's mouth. "What is it?" Tony asks quietly.

"You need to gather your forces," Loki snarls. He screws his face up in a disgusted way and his words are forced. "You need to… call the Avengers."

"What's the super-secret password?" Tony asks, folding his arms like a petulant child.

"Stark," Thor says quietly as Loki renews his magical attack on the suit. "This is really serious. It's about Jay and Hel."

Tony swallows, turning away for a moment to gather himself. The Avengers haven't talked about Jay all that much since that day on Vanaheim. She left Steve locked in a cell in the Vanaheim resistance stronghold, went off to fight Hel alone, killed Tyr, and then promptly disappeared. There was a lot they didn't know, a lot to process, and all together too little hope that Jay had survived. It seemed far more likely that she'd given her life to destroy Hel and without Loki to tell them what had happened, they had all gone their separate ways. Thor had returned to Asgard to set up a watch for Hel or Jay, and Natasha and Clint had done their best to dig into Warren Biochemical with little luck to unearth anything they could about Hel and Tyr. Bruce and Tony have been working on figuring out how Hel manipulated the Birfrost. Steve has almost disappeared completely. They have all dealt with their grief differently, no one daring to hope that Jay survived.

He looks at Thor and Loki. "Tell me everything."

Thor looks at his brother pointedly and Stark says, "Are you sure?"

Thor nods and Tony releases the Iron Man suit. Loki stumbles forward, marks on his arm where the suit had pressed in. "Time to start talking," Stark says.

And surprisingly, Loki does, voice devoid of emotion. It is strange to see such a lack of malice in the trickster. As the story unfolds, it is clear that what happened to Jay greatly affected Loki, that it carved something out of him to watch her change into the goddess of death to balance out the cosmos.

When he finishes, there is a heavy silence, and the premonition of more hard conversations to come. They will definitely need to get everyone on board for this one. Their youngest member is now somewhere out in the cosmos, trapped in the body of the goddess of death, wreaking havoc on the Nine Worlds because something went catastrophically wrong when she joined with Hel.

"Shit, I really don't want tell Rogers," Tony swears, finally breaking the silence. "He's not going to respond well to this."

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A hooded man ducks down the alley on 78th Street, keeping out of sight. He can hear sirens in the distance but keeps his pace steady, giving no indication that he is the quarry they are after. He only has the clothes on his back, some money smuggled from the prison guard who go him out and an address where he can lie low for the night until the initial ruckus of his escape has died down. He'll move to a safer safe house once he knows the Avengers have caught wind of his escape.

Thoughts of revenge spur him on thru the night, keeping him moving despite his exhaustion and the humid air cloying in his lungs. The fried electronic tracker around his ankle is an annoyance, but one he has to live with for now until he can meet up with the remnants of Warren Biochemical. Word has reached him, even in the secure S.H.I.E.L.D. prison, of Tyr's death.

Jared Bradlich smiles to himself. The infamous Mr. Tuesday killed by his own rogue experiment. There's a sort of poetic justice to it.

He'd be proud of Jaycee Strong if only he didn't want to kill her too.

Rumor in the prison was that Jay was actually a princess, heir to the throne of Vanaheim, the realm Mr. Tuesday was always cursing when he cursed some woman named Sigyn. Bradlich hadn't understood the particulars but understands the sentiment. Desire to control a woman who spurned him, a woman with powers that made her an invaluable asset in the world of warrior and armies and the struggle for dominance.

He reaches the address the prison guard gave him and knocks. No stupid secret knock. If someone is knocking on this door at bloody one in the morning, it's not a spy or detective. No need for subterfuge in this area of town. It's populated by people like him.

The door opens a crack an he sees a blue eye in the warm light inside. The man gives Jared a quick appraisal, recognition flitting through the one eye Jared can see. The man closes the door to unlock the chain and then opens the door fully, allowing Jared to step in out of the night.

"Mr. Bradlich," the man acknowledges, waving him inside. "We were told to await your arrival."

In the dingy room, there are six other men, hardened soldiers that worked for him once when he was at the head of Warren Biochemical. The first man watches him glance around the room. "We are at your disposal, sir."

Bradlich smiles at those words. "Oh, it's good to be back," he says, cracking his neck side to side. "We have work to do boys."

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In the throne room in Niflheim, the goddess of lost souls is holding her head in her hands, eyes crinkled in pain against a migraine that would have put a car crusher to shame.

Her knees wobble as she lowers herself onto her throne, rubbing bony fingers into her temples. She is alone in the vast hall, even her own breathing echoing in the continuous space, rolling back to her as sighs every couple of moments.

That little nagging Midgardian bastard will not stay silent.

Hel is not used to feeling this weary, to being so tired her bones crack in her jaw and her mind fatigues so rapidly that she actually has to sleep at night. Again, that bastard Sigyndottir.

Currently, the little beast is fighting her chains in their shared psyche. Disgruntled, Hel sinks down into her mind, her incorporeal form reverting to the woman she was, half alive, half dead. The new corporeal look is courtesy of the Sigyndottir and Hel has to admit that it is much more terrifying than she ever was alone with it's fine cheekbones, supple strength and the added benefits of making her enemies pause for fear of hurting their once-friend. Staring at Jaycee Strong now in their shared mind, Hel smiles at just how far the Sigyndottir has fallen.

Although this is always a mental construct when they interact, Jaycee Strong is bound just as surely as if her physical body was restrained. Hel has her chained between two pillars, a cruel reminiscence of when Tyr chained her at the Circlets of Sigyn. Her arms are pulled wide, painfully so, the muscles in her shoulders and chest at the tearing point. Even if she broke the manacles on her wrists, she wouldn't be able to move her arms, the damage is so deep. She is barefoot, only her toes grazing the ground, adding to the strain on her shoulders. Her hair hangs in limp curls around her face, her clothes little more than shreds. As Hel approaches, Jaycee looks up at her under auburn curls with unbridled fury and grief in her grey eyes. It is enough to make any other god pause the look is so black.

But Hel is no lesser goddess. She is the ruler of the underworld.

"Monstress," Jay spits at her as Hel grabs her chin in her bony grip, crushing and bruising her jaw. Hel's fingers tighten on Jay's neck and Jay fights her, can already feel the welts rising on her fragile mortal skin.

"Don't accuse me of being what you are as well," Hel says, lips close to Jay's face. "You think I can't feel your emotions?" Her other hand caresses Jay's face. "Part of you loved what we just did to Asgard. Part of you enjoyed shattering Odin's spear, loved pushing those false gods into the sea. And you even…," Hel traces Jay's jaw, pacing around her, "…enjoyed watching your lover learn to fear you."

Jay wrenches against the chains in denial but it is not as fervent as her previous attempts to escape have been. She is flagging, her strength slowly draining, the longer the two of them fight mentally. Hel smiles from behind her. How long does the little Midgardian think she can hold out against the goddess of the dead? Sigyndottir or no, she is still only Midgardian. Mortal. Flawed.

Hel can remember their battle for supremacy well. Seven months of mental battle within the same body, each of them wicked and willful in their own way. When their souls joined and they sent Loki thru the Bifrost, Hel herself was disoriented in a new body. But once Jay had finished siphoning Hel's ability to use the Bifrost, the mortal woman experienced a backlash of power and exhaustion so devastating that it wounded her mind, allowing time for Hel to realize that the Sigyndottir had made a critical error. Being a descendant of Sigyn, was not the same thing as having Sigyn's soul. They were not equal halves of a goddess. Jaycee saw this realization their minds being linked.

And this began a seven-month battle for supremacy of the mind and body that they shared.

Only days ago, Hel wounded Jaycee so deeply that she was able to chain the mortal woman within her own mind. Jaycee is still recovering, her back a map of lacerations, a new scar bisecting one eyebrow, one knee still dislocated. The mortal woman has been screaming obscenities in their shared mind since, revenge in her voice, a true Avenger at heart. At one point, Hel gagged ger but it did very little as Jay is a telepath and has been doing her best to send headaches screaming thru Hel's head. Hel has to admire Jaycee's fortitude.

But Sigyndottir's resistance is fading, slowly true, but it is waning. Her sanity is slowly slipping, her true emotions bleeding thru. She was right on the cliffs of Clarrappidium. Jaycee Strong has a very wicked, dark side. She harbours anger towards Odin and Asgard for enslaving the Vanir people, an anger Hel harnessed, turned to hate and brought to bear on Odin. They're combined power, teleportation, telepathy and telekinesis, make them stronger than they ever were apart. And Hel felt Jaycee's satisfaction when they brought Odin low. It's a start, the beginning of a descent into darkness that Hel knows Jaycee is trying to stop. But Jaycee cannot deny to herself, and therefore to Hel, that some part of her is intrigued and welcomes the darkness.

Hel walks to stand back in front of Jaycee. "I will never stop fighting you," Jay swears quietly, looking right into Hel's eyes.

Hel pats her on the cheek. "Don't tired yourself out, love," she says and Jay snaps her teeth at Hel. "We have big plans and so much destruction to impart to the realms. I need that telepathic gift of yours, my dear."

Jaycee can barely stand, but she tries in vain to pull free of the chains, tearing the muscles of her shoulder girdle as she does. Hel blows her a kiss, and turns to leave. Jay murmurs something to her retreating back.

"What was that?" Hel cups a hand to her ear, not bothering to turn all the way to face her. "Losing your voice too?"

"Careful what you turn me into, Hel," Jay tells her with a very dangerous smile. "You might not like me when I become more wicked than you."

Hel laughs, but there is a thread of uneasiness that they both feel. Jay show her teeth to Hel, because there are no secrets between them now.

Hel leaves Jay hanging there, a prisoner in her own mind, unable to keep from wondering what sort of demon she is creating.


	3. Potent, Her Terror

Steve Rogers is pounding the pavement, wearing a groove deep into the sidewalk surrounding Oslow Park in Washington D.C.

It's a popular jogging area but he is actively putting the running elite of the capital city of America to shame. First there was the mommy vlogger who tried to keep up with him to get an interview. She gave up on her jog all together when he lapped her for the fourth time. Then came the Georgetown track and field team trying to match his pace as a challenge. They did well for a while, but were panting just as he finished his warmup and hit his sprint pace. There was the uber-fan who wanted an autograph that tripped ass over teakettle. Steve felt bad enough to help him back up but not bad enough to sign an autograph. Now it's a woman triathlete. She's giving him space, but changing her pace when he does to challenge herself. This one he doesn't mind so much because it reminds him of… he picks up his pace.

On his next lap, he spots someone watching him from the southwest end of the park. As he gets closer he spots the slick suit, sunglasses and nonchalant, playboy stance. As he comes in line with Tony Stark, he very pointedly turns his head and keeps going.

He hears Tony sigh before he sprints away.

He keeps an eye on Tony in his periphery as he continues. Six laps later, Tony picks a bench and sits down. Twenty laps after that, he slides his glasses down his nose as Rogers passes and blows a bubble from gum Steve didn't realize he was chewing. Ten laps after than, Tony is giving a full blown interview piece to the mommy vlogger, who has recovered spectacularly from Steve's rebuff. Sighing to himself, Steve slows down and stops in front of Stark.

The rejected mom completely brushes off Steve and Tony pats the bench next to him when she leaves. Rogers crosses his arms and remains standing. "You know," Tony drawls, "You really need to work on your form. You pronate something awful when you sprint."

"What do you want Stark?" Steve asks curtly.

"Right to it then?" tony asks. "No small talk? No, how've you been Tony? How's Stark industries doing these days? Sell any Iron Man suits to any megalomaniacs lately?"

When Steve doesn't answer, Tony blows out a very dramatic breath through his lips. "Man you hold on to things tighter than a rich dame at an estate sale in the coast closet with the butler."

Steve makes a disgusted face. "That's mean-spirited."

"And there he is," Tony replies, gesturing towards Steve emphatically.

"I'm busy Tony, what do you want?" Steve practically growls.

"Busy working out?" Tony asks incredulously. "Talk about building in redundancy in a model super soldier."

"Tony," Steve unfolds his arms, ready to sprint away.

"Okay, okay," Tony relents. "Don't get your spanx in a twist." Steve's look has gone from annoyed to murderous so Stark drops his customary sarcasm. "We've received news about Jay."

Steve's face goes oddly blank. He turns and starts to walk away. Tony is surprised by his response, befuddled by how much animosity Steve still feels about being locked in a prison by Jay. He knows Jay did something to bring Captain America's guard down that day but Steve refused to say what when they released him.

"Steve," Tony says. The candor and regret in Tony's voice are at least enough to give Steve pause. "Thor just arrived from Asgard. Hel attacked the Bifrost and destroyed the Circlets of Sigyn."

Steve turn to him. "Hel is still alive? But I thought Jay defeated her. It's what we all thought."

"What we all assumed," Tony corrects. "And you know what they say about assumptions."

"But if Hel is still alive…," Steve's face is already edging towards grief as realization takes hold. "Tell me she isn't..?" He can't bear to say those words aloud.

Tony hesitates. "That's actually a really hard question to answer."

Steve's voice is hard and edgy. "No it isn't, Tony," he grits out, close enough to tower over the billionaire. "It's binary. Alive… or dead."

"Tell that to Schrodinger's cat," Tony mumbles under his breath. Steve is breathing hard and not from his run. Harder than when he was running. Tony looks at him with compassion which is only making it worse.

"If you want it to be binary, then Jay is alive," Tony tells him and Steve's relief is fierce but short-lived. "She fused with Hel in Niflheim after they disappeared from the cliffs of Clarrappidium."

"Fused?" Steve can't reconcile this.

"It's a long story," Tony says. "Tell you what. You come back to the Avengers Tower with me to help us decide what comes next and I'll explain on the way."

Steve looks at him, stricken. He swore he needed time, didn't want to ever see Jaycee Strong again. But there's something in Tony's voice that makes him ask, "Is she suffering?"

Slowly, Tony nods and the concern on his face is fatherly. "I think so, Steve. She needs us."

Steve nods, meeting Tony's eyes. "Hel won?"

"I don't know," Tony replies. "Something went wrong. Jay and Hel are in the same body. Two minds, struggling for dominance. I think Jay may… be losing."

"Where's you car?"

"Car?" Tony laughs. "Try jet. Need to pack any bags?"

Steve looks at him. "Just a shield."

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It is early morning on Vanaheim and the suns have barely risen, yet Syvlk and Bjern are already in the throne room of the palace, steaming cups of brevitasa in hand as they pour over a map of the realm. Dorany is in the corner, eyes half-lidded, using her clairvoyant gift to search for any visions about their missing queen.

The last seven months have taken their toll on Clarrappidium. The city is still recovering from Tyr and Hel's attack, clearing out the remnants of the armies, rebuilding homes and trying to keep the populace from revolt. Jay's disappearance from the cosmos has shattered people's faith and the clairvoyants are suffering because of it. The Asgardian barons have been pushing for negotiations to install a new viceroy or to find cohesive Vanir representation or a committee that they can control. Syvlk and Bjern have been able to hold them off so far but the pressure is mounting and unrest in the city is elevated.

Unfortunately they are preparing for riots and violence and cannot focus energy on finding their lost queen.

When Jaycee and Hel fought their fated battle on the cliffs of Clarrappidium, it was as if Vanaheim had come back to life. The clairvoyants were suddenly stronger, the land seeming to give them strength. It was true: Jaycee Strong was the one true queen of Vanaheim and the realm recognized it own.

But then Jay and Hel had vanished and everything fell into chaos. Both armies, now leaderless, were engaged in a battle of survival. Hope and purpose disappeared and they tore each other to shreds until the weary Vanir resistance pushed Hel's army from the Outskirts. They tallied what they had lost that day and the numbers brought them to their knees with grief.

Now Syvlk, Bjern and Dorany are barely keeping Clarrappidium running. There are daily arguments between clairvoyants and non-clairvoyants that get more and more violent. Asgard is pressuring them to accept status as a vassal state. And Jaycee Strong is nowhere to be found.

Dorany snaps out of her vision with a gasp. Both Svylk and Bjern groggily look up, the brevitasa not having truly kicked in yet. Syvlk is first to realize something is really wrong when he sees the tears on Dorany's face. The prophetess is crying, her eyes bright, her face a mask of grief. Dorany and Svylk have seen many lifetimes, some of them together, but he has never seen sadness such as this on her face before.

Syvlk kneels in front of her and takes her hands in his own. "Speak, prophetess, and I will listen," he says quietly. When she shudders and her gaze finally finds his, he gently wipes the tears off her face with his thumbs. "Dorany, what have you seen?"

The breath she draws in is ragged and barely controlled. "She is lost," the words come out as if strained through a sieve. "Our queen is lost."

Unconsciously Syvlk's hands tighten on hers. "Jaycee is dead?" He hears Bjern's gasp of grief but keeps his eyes focused on Dorany. "Dorany, is she dead?"

The prophetess shakes her head, tears flying off to strike Syvlk in the face. "Trapped, imprisoned, lost," her words run together in her manic sadness. She is wild in a way Syvlk has never seen before, her eyes unfocused, burdened by what she has seen. "She is coming."

The last statement is like a death knell in the otherwise silent room. "She is….," But Syvlk never finishes.

A massive explosion of rock and marble reduces the once beautiful throne room to a three-walled amphitheatre to the cliffs of Clarrappidium. Gone is the ceiling and the western wall, the red rock of the cliffs dominating the scene, light streaming into the room. Bjern, closest to the throne, dives in time to miss the majority of the rubble that shrapnels around them, finding sanctuary behind the throne itself. Syvlk pulls Dorany underneath him, a hunk of marble the size of his head slamming into his exposed back, winding him with bruising force.

A second explosion closely follows the first, spraying them with another blast of dust and marble, a second wall falling to the attacking force. Syvlk chokes and coughs on the thick dust in the air, white and red in equal measures, his vision swimming with spots, his hearing reduced to the ringing echoes of the deafened. Underneath him, Dorany's hair is coated in filth, her cheek bleeding from a stray piece of rock that flew across the throne room. When no further strikes rock the walls, Syvlk cries out for Bjern, his comrade obscured in the shadows from monoliths that used to be part of the walls. His own voice sounds far away, as if from within a tunnel a long way down.

Then Bjern, is next to him, helping Dorany to her feet, the three of them staggering in partial deafness, Syvlk drawing his sword, unsure of what will come their way next. Bjern is coughing throatily, his lungs rebelling in the dusky air. They stay close to each other, trying to discern what is invading Clarrappidium. There are faint screams from outside the palace. The clash of swords and the chaotic rumble of fleeing feet. Syvlk wraps the edge of his shirt over his mouth, squinting in the gloomy dust motes as a silhouette forms on the edge of the ruined throne room.

Dorany has seen the figure before him and is watching it approach with its measured stride, her face a mixture of trepidation and sorrow. Syvlk stands with her as the silhouette resolves itself into the form of slight woman, hair ghosting around her, her shadow inky in the dusty air. She saunters towards them, hips swaying, the conqueror. One sword drops slowly into her hand, chains clinking and Syvlk feels his blood slow as the second, sister sword slides into her other hand.

Hel, goddess of death, steps out of the gloom, hair floating about her head, swords held loose and ready at her side. Her smile is all teeth and gleaming, cat green eyes. "I thought the throne room could use some airing out," she says, voice mocking and sly. "Vanaheim's queen is interested in redecorating."

Bjern sucks in a hard breath behind Syvlk. "No, it cannot be," he says quietly and Hel's head swivels to regard him, birdlike. She lips her tongue slowly over her bottom lip. "Jaycee… she fought you…,"

Hel smiles. "She did, dear foolish, boy," her hair curls around her head, forming a nimbus of black and white. "I'm guessing even you can see who won."

"No," the denial escapes from Syvlk's lips before he can stop it. Hel's gaze flits to him, razor sharp and gleeful at his distress.

"Oh don't worry, she's not dead," Hel says, swinging one sword up to come and rest on her shoulder. "Let me show you where she is now."

A telekinetic blast knocks Bjern, Syvlk and Dorany off their feet. Shadows emerge from the dust behind Hel as they struggle to rise, Hel's army of the dead falling into the space behind her. She smiles, looking down at them. She drums her fingers on her sword hilt. "I use the best parts for myself," she tells their horrified faces. "The rest is not much more than bones now."

Bjern rushes her, his dagger thrusting for her throat. Hel blocks easily, sending him crashing into one of the remaining pillars in the room with a flick of her wrist. "Don't make it so easy," she chides him. "I do want to work, just a little bit for it."

Syvlk staggers to his feet, sword drawn, understanding bleeding in. Jaycee isn't dead, not in the truest sense. Looking at Hel now he can see parts of Jay in her new appearance. Hel's use of telekinesis confirms for him that Jay is trapped inside Hel's psyche. Hel has access to her powers and is using them to deadly effect. The throne room walls were not decimated by cannon or war machine. Hel tapped into Jaycee's telekinesis and brought them down with an effort of will.

As he prepares to face Hel, even though he knows it will be his end, Dorany lays a hand on his forearm. Surprised by her calm, so different from the moments preceding the attack, he realizes that she has not said anything to the goddess of death since her appearance. But, he realizes, this is what Dorany would have seen. Their queen trapped in the body of a murderous goddess, unable to come home to them.

Dorany's eyes are locked on Hel and almost as if the goddess can feel her regard, her eyes swivel to meet those of the prophetess. Her smile is slow, sinuous and measured. "Ah," Hel purrs. "Now here is someone who can give me a challenge. Do you remember me little clairvoyant? You were alive when I once held the throne. Are you ready for a return to the days of Vanaheim's glory?"

Dorany matches her smile with one of her own. "I remember my queen defeating you, if that is what you are referring to."

Hel snarls and for a brief moment, Syvlk sees her eyes flash grey. Startled, he looks to Dorany who only smiles wider. "She lives and rages against you, does she not?" Dorany says, just as seductively as Hel's mockery. "That's why you bluster so. She still has the strength to defeat you, doesn't she?"

Hel lurches towards them, her swords pinwheeling, the chain between the two blades whipping through her hair. Dorany grabs Syvlk's sword from his hand and shoves him away. He staggers, surprised as the two women lock in combat. Dorany only spares him one glance as she pivots to avoid a swing at her head. "Send Bjern!" She yells as she duels Hel, the deafening roar of Hel's cheering soldiers almost drowning out her words. "Warn them!"

Gathering his wits, Syvlk staggers through the rubble, picking up a badly battered spear as he goes. None of the soldiers engage him, too engrossed in the blood sport playing out before their eyes. He kneels at Bjern's side, his oldest friend covered in blood and stone fragments. Bjern is coming around, his eyes dizzy with pain, but he meets Syvlk's eyes.

"Send word to Midgard," Syvlk grabs Bjern's collar. "Warn them."

Bjern looks past him to see Dorany battling Hel. "I will defend her," Syvlk tells him.

"I cannot leave you to face her alone," Bjern says, his words fierce. "It is death."

Syvlk pulls him close into a one-armed, rough hug, then pushes him away. "If you don't warn them, then Vanaheim dies. Dorany and I have lived long in protection of this realm. Don't you dare dishonor us by staying."

The two men, comrades for ages exchange one last look, Bjern pleading and already grieving, Syvlk resigned and stoic as always. Then Bjern turns and flees into the palace, not daring to look back. "Goddess-speed, my friend," Syvlk whispers into his wake and then turns to face the goddess of the damned.

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"She will kill thousands," the tall, slender, brunette goddess says. "We must intervene, now, before she starts down a path of destruction."

Her sisters consider this. "Perhaps the Midgardian inside of her will prevail?" The blonde sister is hopeful, still so naïve despite having lived eons. But it is in her nature to find hope as it is in her brunette sister's nature to value life. There are thing that they cannot change about who they are.

"The Midgardian girl did not possess the complete other half of her soul," the brunette counters, running her fingers across the map of the cosmos in front of her, open on the table made of entwined roots. The map swirls with galaxies, stardust and nebulas, all moving around one another. "If she is still fighting within the dragon's soul, she will not be able to continue to do so for much longer. She is mortal, inside of an immortal shell. It defies all logic that the Midgardian girl survived at all."

"Maybe that is a sign that she can control the dragon," the blonde sisters' curls bounce as she looks between the two other women. She settles her gaze on her dark-haired sister, who has, until now, remained silent in the corner, pondering all they say. "What do you think, sister?"

The last sister goddess has short, black hair, piercing blue eyes and a very serious demeanor. "I say we wait," her voice is husky and unpolished. She looks at the brunette. "You remember her as well as I do. Give her time to rebalance her soul. She has been without a complete soul for so long and now she finally has a chance to be whole once more."

"But what if she cannot balance it?" The brunette demands. "She has so much hatred in her heart for all that the pieces of her have had to endure."

The dark woman nods slowly. "Hatred does have its place too," she says to herself. To her sisters she says, "If she threatens a realm and the other Midgardians cannot stop her, then we will have to make a stand. You are right, we cannot allow civilizations to fall as she finds herself again. We remain vigilant. And we wait."


	4. Personality Amalgamation

This assembly of Avengers is muted and brooding, the atmosphere bitter and bleak.

Tony and Steve were the last to arrive back at the Tower. Clint and Natasha have been out on assignment in Ukraine but summarily wrapped up their work and took an overnight flight from Kiev to New York. Bruce had been lecturing at M.I.T. and drove in from Boston this morning. Thor of course, was already there, wearing a groove into the floor with his pacing. And there was Loki as well.

At first, Steve thought Tony had one of his Iron Legion in the room as a guard. But the suit of armor has no helmet and all Steve could see was the black hair when they entered the room. Tony had used one of the suits to imprison the trickster god and he stands like a statue, encased in the suit, unable to move since Tony has locked all motor functions. His eyes watch Rogers as he enters, but he says nothing, his eyes shadowed under narrowed eyebrows, his faint, sardonic expression on his lips.

The tension in the room is noticeably higher due to his presence.

Briefly, Steve thinks about asking Tony for control of the suit so he can throw Loki out the window for a bit of fun. He's sure he's not the only one thinking about that as he catches a glimpse of Clint's sour face.

They've convened in the upstairs lounge of the Avengers tower, the one with the minibar and the view of the Chrysler Building. Everyone has had a very minimal briefing of the situation: Hel has attacked Asgard, mostly likely will attack Midgard at some point and Jaycee Strong fought but lost. It's now a matter of getting the full scope of the problem and preparing for what comes next.

No one wants to be the first to speak, not even Tony. Normally he would gloss over any awkward silence with his usual sarcasm and lack of tack, but Steve notices that he is very reserved. On the jet ride, Stark had plugged into his headphones and closed his eyes. Steve had taken it for a typical dismissal from Tony, but now he's not so sure. Tony has always been very fatherly towards Jay, even if he brushed it off with humor. No one has outright said what has happened to Jay and it is on everyone's minds.

"Let's stop stalling," Barton says, getting to his feet tot pace. "None of this will get easier with waiting." It is unusual for Clint to take charge, but he is a man who rises to the occasion. And they all know that Jay and he have a relationship they built from lots of work together. "When was the attack on Asgard and what's going on with Hel?"

"More like what the Hel is going on," Natasha mutters.

"Ah, you made a funny," Tony coos, back in familiar territory. "I didn't think you had it in you, Romanoff."

Nat looks at Tony with her I'll-eat-your-eyeballs-on-toast smile.

"Asgard was attacked yesterday," Thor says. "Hel.. Jay… Hel.. opened a portal through space, manipulating the Bifrost."

"Hel or Jay?" Natasha asks. "What does that mean?"

Thor shrugs in a hopeless way. "She was Hel, sure enough.. but her body..her powers, those were Jaycee's."

"Did she absorb Jay's powers?" Bruce asks. "When she….,"

"She isn't dead." This comes from Loki, quiet but certain. "Jaycee Strong isn't dead. Neither is Hel."

"So who came through the portal?" Bruce asks, swallowing the lump in his throat as all the Avengers turn hostile glances on Loki.

"Both and neither," Loki says calmly.

"That isn't an answer," Steve says and the trickster's eyes flit to him, his head moving even if his body can't.

"It is," Loki retorts. "With your limited capacity, you just can't comprehend what that means."

Steve brushes off the intentional jibe. "Could you explain it?" he asks through gritted teeth.

Loki raises one eyebrow, perfectly slow, designed to spark fury and convey disdain. He's good at the dramatic, Steve has to give him that. Then Loki sighs, a sigh with weight to it, something so human that it throws Steve around for a moment. Something has changed with the trickster. He sounds older, even though Steve knows he has lived for centuries, his eyes hinting at a burden of knowledge that will change him in the days to come.

"Hel and Sigyn, and by extension Jay, were never meant to be more than one person," Loki starts. There is something captivating in his voice, a spider spinning a story-web, reeling the unwary in. "In ages past they were one person."

"What?" Bruce interjects. Loki does the eyebrow raising thing again to admonish Banner for interrupting.

"Hel and Sigyn were once one goddess," Loki continues. "Who she was is unknown. But being Sigyn's descendant, Jaycee would have been as close to Sigyn as was possible."

Steve does his best to quiet his breathing. "You're saying.. Jaycee and Hel became the same person when they battled on Vanaheim."

Loki shakes his head. "They mortally injured each other on Vanaheim, "he says, and Steve can see the memory of it surface in his eyes. Even he cannot believe that pain is manufactured for their empathy. "Hel transported us to Niflheim." There is a beat of quiet and Loki chooses his words as wisely as he can. "Jaycee tried to merge herself with Hel to rebalance their souls."

Banner breaks the tense silence with a single query. "Tried?"

"When they merged," Loki says, a forced kind of detachment coloring his tone, "It was Jay's body that survived with body souls inside. Before she expelled me from Vanaheim, it was Hel and Jay inside Jaycee Strong's body."

"And now?" Steve is the one to ask. Despite themselves, all of the Avengers are listening, rapt.

"The woman who attacked Asgard wore Jaycee's body," Loki says, voice artificially blank. "But she was Hel."

"So, you're saying that Jaycee and Hel fought for dominance, but Jaycee lost?" Tony asks. Loki tries to shrug but can't move his shoulders in the suit. "Is she still… in there?"

"I wouldn't think of them as separate entities," Loki says, a sort of deadened tone in his voice, completely devoid of hope. "They are one person."

"But you said she used Jay's telekinesis to destroy the Circlets of Sigyn," Tony recalls. "Surely that means that Hel has not destroyed Jay completely." He looks like he wants to bite back how harsh those words sounded but doesn't.

"It's not like you can pull one from the other," Loki's tome is slightly annoyed. "She has characteristics of both, but Hel dominates her personality."

"Dominates," Barton says. "You think Jay's still in there, don't you?"

Loki's lips form a tight, thin line. "Whether or not she is, you can't untangle those two souls and play Prince Charming. It's not like a demonic exorcism. One without the other could cause a rift in space and time, worse than when it first happened."

"But Jay may still be in there?" Rogers asks.

"Stop acting like this is a mission to accomplish or a damsel to save!" Loki explodes, muscles in his next straining as he tries to move. "Jaycee Strong, as we knew her, is gone, subsumed by Hel. The result is a goddess powerful enough to shatter Odin's spear and level a realm. She will annihilate us!"

Shocked at the force and magnitude of his outburst, all of the Avengers looked devastated or distressed to varying degrees.

"So what," Steve practically spits at him. "We just give up. Like you have?"

Unruffled and less likely to rise to the bait, Loki scoffs. "It would be a prudent start. Send your spandex to the consignment shop and make a pretty penny." He smirks. "Keep the shield on the wall like a hunting trophy."

Tony makes the suit do the chicken dance. "Thanks," Steve can't help but laugh.

"My turn next," Clint calls.

Banner, always a bit more serious than the other Avenger Bros, has been mulling over everything Loki has said. "So, a goddess more lethal than Hel is out there, with an agenda or a vendetta and she's most likely going to come after Midgard at some point?"

"Ding ding," Loki drawls. "Give the beast a gold star."

Moments later he is out of breath as Stark had him do the Single Ladies routine.

"We weren't much good at stopping Hel last time," Bruce points out when everyone has smothered their laughter sufficiently. "And to be honest, Jaycee was getting really effective with her telekinesis. How do we bring down a goddess with those combined abilities? I mean, she has telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation, a bloody trifecta."

"We don't even know what she wants," Natasha points out. "I'm not saying she's not a threat, but without knowing what she's after, it will be very difficult to formulate any kind of strategy."

Loki snorts. "I think it's fair to say she wouldn't come bearing an olive branch."

Tony is about to have Loki do another embarrassing dance, this time to be filmed and put on America's Funniest Home Videos, but Thor lays his hand on Tony's forearm. "Hel is the goddess of the dead, it is her duty to house the souls that do not pass to Valhalla. Sigyn was the goddess of fidelity. Do we know what these two women would have been when they were one goddess?"

"Goddess of the Grateful Dead?" Tony suggests. Clint tries unsuccessfully to hide a snicker.

"I don't know much about the Norse pantheon," Bruce admits. "None of my . are related to anything remotely close to mythology."

"Well she would have been more powerful than either goddess alone," Natasha pipes up from her position on the sofa. "Besides Frigga, what other goddesses are there that would be considered queens in a realm, or have the powers the two of them combined have?"

Loki's brow is creased in thought, as is Thor's. "There is actually very little in the records of the gods that came before the Aesir and Vanir," Loki says. "Good old Odin wanting to appear omnipotent again."

"Are there records on Asgard we can explore?" Bruce asks, ever the professor. "Maybe Odin or Frigga would have some idea of what this new goddess used to be." The changes in tenses seem to throw him for a loop for a moment.

Loki shakes his head. "Even Odin seemed shocked by her," he tells them. "Normally when a threat comes out of nowhere and declares war on Asgard, it's because said threat has a massive vendetta against the All-Father. But even Odin seemed not to know what she was." He smiles at the memory. "He was too shocked about losing his precious pointy stick."

Thor paces, his cape fanning out each time he turns. "It's possible she's not a goddess at all," he muses. "She could be something much more ancient. There are stories of the beings that made the universe. Although it is unlikely, she may not be only a goddess."

"There's a scary thought," Tony snorts.

"Points to Thor for creative thinking," Loki scoffs. Although he's clearly miffed he didn't think of that first and they all know it.

"The more we know about what she is the better," Steve says, uncrossing his arms and sliding his hands into his jean pockets. "I say we take a trip to Asgard, do some digging in the historical archives. If we find out what she is, we have a better chance of finding a way to stop her."

Clint nods. "If she's as mercurial as Loki and Thor say, then we're not only dealing with a highly unstable version of Jay, but a highly unstable goddess of the dead Hel-bent on destroying any reminder of Sigyn and Jay."

"Okay, can we please keep track of the Hel-related quips," Stark interjects. "It's too many pun possibilities for me and we need to know who comes up with the best one."

Rogers shoots a look. Tony puts his hands up in mock surrender. "Well that was Hel-a-awkward," Loki says smugly.

"You don't count," Tony tells him, forcing Loki to pose in a runway strut. The trickster shoots daggers at him with his eyes, trying in vain to wrench his body out of the Iron Legion suit.

"So, we're agreed," Steve says. "A trip to Asgard is in order."

Romanoff nods. "Clint and I have to debrief from Kiev, so tomorrow morning let's be ready to go. Thor, I'm assuming you can call your bud Heimdall for a lift." Thor nods an affirmative.

All eyes turn to Loki. "So," Tony says, brandishing the remote to the Iron Legion suit. "What are we to do with you in the meantime?"

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Down in the subterranean levels of a New York skyscraper, Jared Bradlich and his team of loyal Warren Biochemical guards are prying open the heavy doors to a laboratory that should have been left to rot.

The men have just detonated a low-grade explosive in the electronic locking system and are now using brute strength to pry open the heavy, double doors. Its dark, only sparse floodlights lit at even intervals in the hallway, the perfect atmosphere for a break-in. The guards are all dressed in tactical kit with visor helmets to conceal identities if this goes sideways on them.

The likelihood of that is rare. These rooms are not on the building floor plans, never were on the blueprints and haven't been used since Warren Biochemical was shutdown over a year ago. But Bradlich is a cautious man, what with being wanted by S.H.I.E.L.D. and likely to be hunted down by the Avengers relatively soon. He needs to element of surprise on his side for as long as possible, so he himself is wearing a helmet, although it wounds his vanity.

With a clang, the door releases and the laboratory opens before them. Feeling on the wall in the gloom, Bradlich finds the light switch for the emergency lighting and flicks it upwards. Soft, amber lights along the top of the room sputter to life.

Jared leads the way into the room. The laboratory shows all the sign of disuse but is otherwise untouched from the day they sealed it off to protect the secrets of this room. This was once the home of Bradlich's greatest experimental test subject and the inception point for Mr. Tuesday's Victory Project.

Bradlich's eyes scan the room slowly and his lieutenant waits at his elbow for his orders. Medical files and chemicals have been left here, undisturbed and a slow smile curls across Bradlich's face.

"Let's get the house light on," Bradlich tells his men. "We have work to do."

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Clint is the first one up in the morning, as per usual, and is glad to have the kitchenette to himself. Tony may be an egotistical bastard most, if not all of the time, but he sure knows how to stock a kitchen. Although his staff probably stocks it. And there is a glaring surplus of alcohol compared to pressed fruit juice.

Still, there are eggs and bacon, ten different types of bread and seven flavors of jam. Clint sets to work sampling all of them.

Seated at the combination island and minibar, Barton has a nice view of the sunrise over New York City. There are better sunrises he's seen, better places to be when the dawn comes, but there is something unique about the way the skyscrapers and urban sprawl begins the day. Not normally so loquacious or reflective, Clint crunches into his toast, knowing underneath his calm morning mood is the knowledge of what is happening to Jaycee.

While everyone else was optimistic that Jay won, defeated Hel in an epic, final battle, Barton was always the pessimist. It may be his background as a spy and an assassin, but he suspected it wasn't so simple. Jay had been secretive, keeping her plans from them which would have been status quo when she first met them, but after her time with Jane, Darcy and the team, she was less likely to be so guarded. Yet right before she locked Steve in a cell and faced down the goddess of death, Clint wonders how much she knew about what would happen afterwards.

Jay may not have known that Hel would control her this way, but Clint would wager good money that Jay knew merging with Hel would be the end of her. There would have been no more Jaycee Strong. She, as an individual, would not have existed anymore. Clint doesn't think he would have had the willpower in her position to give up his life for a greater intended purpose. He understands sacrifice, although he avoids it as much as possible since he's seen how high the cost can be.

Clint trained Jay, worked with her days and nights to train her mind to harden her body. He knows without a doubt that she gave without hesitation and that she battles without end. If there is a shred of Jaycee Strong still left inside the goddess of the dead, which he knows they will have to face, she hasn't given up.

He tears himself away from his morbid thoughts and tries to enjoy his breakfast.

Barton is about to sample the apricot jam on rye toast when the lighting in the room changes.

The overhead lights flicker, and a humming starts, a subsonic sound that whines a bass note that he can just barely hear. He's up off the island stool, hand on the silverware drawer, sliding it open to grab a steak knife. Across the room, the arched sculpture he thought was purely decorative is crackling with energy, little sprays of light moving on the inside edge. The sculpture is floor to ceiling and solid metal. Barton realizes how much like a stylish doorway it looks and grips the handle of the knife tighter. Leave it to Tony Stark to build a portal in the lounge and then disguise it as an artistic accent.

There is a high-pitched pop and the arch fills with a membrane of rainbow light. Clint braces himself, keeping the counter between himself and whatever is about to step out of the portal. With all Thor and Loki have told them about the new goddess of the dead, he can feel his muscles bracing for a fight. Hel's army of dead soldiers or the goddess herself could come thru the Bifrost portal in front of him. On the plus side, all the ruckus their battle will make will wake the other Avengers in time for them to find his corpse, Clint thinks morosely.

Then Bjern stumbles through the portal, holding his side, eyes wild.

It takes a second for Barton to shift out of his defensive position as Bjern frantically scans the room, eyes locking on Clint threatening him with a knife meant for cutting sirloins, not for fending off Vanir resistance fighters who have materialized in the Avengers tower on a lovely Monday morning. Snapping out of his funk, Barton drops the knife and runs to the Vanir, who staggers to meet him, terror making the whites of his eyes dwarf his irises. He's babbling something but Barton can't understand what it is until he has the man by the shoulders.

"She's lost," Bjern keeps repeating, his young face suddenly betraying his older age, words grieving and slurred.

"What happened?" Barton demands, examining the man's torso for the source of the blood leaking through his fingers. Deep furrows have been made across his flank but they appear superficial. The man is covered in dust, pieces of grit in his hair. "What happened?"

"She came back to Vanaheim," Bjern grits out, one hand pressed deep into his abdomen. Tony skids into the room, on gauntlet on his hand, hair mussed, eyes riddled with sleep. Bjern looks up at him, eyes terrified. "She came back."

"Who?" Barton asks, gripping the man's shoulders just a little bit too hard. Steve is next to enter the room, followed closely by Thor and Loki. "Who came back to Vanaheim?"

"The goddess of death," Bjern says, a tear dripping down his face, eyes filled with what he saw. "She came out of nowhere, attacked the palace. Syvlk and Dorany…"

"Are they alive?" Barton asks as the rest of the Avengers assemble in the room. "Syvlk and Dorany, are they alive?"

Bjern shakes his head miserably, his heart rate thumping in frenzied rhythm under Barton's hands. "I don't know," he says in anguish. "Syvlk sent me to warn you. Last I saw, Dorany was holding her off and Syvlk was rushing to the prophetess' side. You can't imagine… you can't imagine… what she's become."

He drops to his knees. "Please," he begs. "Please help us. She's too strong."

The portal beyond him suddenly looms large in Barton's view and he knows that the others are thinking the same thing. A matter of steps and then they are on Vanaheim. A simple set of movements and they are jumping into a war zone where an army of the dead wait with an avenging goddess at the head which looks like a woman they one knew. Bjern is evidence enough that Hel awaits them in Vanaheim.

There is a shared look across the faces in the room, a kind of resignation and determination that defines what it means to be an Avenger. Loki rolls his eyes and Steve notices that he is suspiciously absent the Iron Legion suit Tony kept him in. "I'll leave you to make a decision," he says and then walks straight into the portal to Vanaheim.

"I hate it when he decides he wants to show me up," Thor growls and follows.

The rest of them look at each other. "Shall we?" Barton asks.


	5. Unforgiven

They arrive to a Vanaheim in flames.

It was only seven months ago that they were here, battling for the Outskirts, trying to help Jaycee save the Vanir people. The city of Clarrappidium is now in flames, entire buildings in the Upper Ring collapsed, people running for their lives in the streets. The dead have overrun the city, scaling the walls of the Rings, invading every home, clairvoyant and non-clairvoyant alike. The air is choked with debris, dust and ash, a sooty combination that has them coughing as soon as they set foot down on Vanir soil.

At first it takes them a moment to get their bearings in this ruination of a city. Then they glimpse the red rock walls that surround Clarrappidium on three sides and the massive archway that is all that remains of the royal residence and it is clear they are in the remains of the palace of Clarrappipdium.

Jaycee would have sat on the throne in this very room if she had lived. Steve can't help that desperate thought from crossing his mind. He doesn't want to believe Jaycee is dead but the scenes in front of him are enough evidence that Hel has completely subdued her.

Out of the clouds of dust, two figure stumble towards them. The Avengers brace themselves, ready for the worst but Bjern moves towards them, an exclamation of relived joy coming from his lips. Syvlk and Dorany materialize out of the smoke and Bjern wraps them both in a hug, crying in relief so profound, it takes his legs out from under him. In the chaos of their transportation to Vanaheim, there wasn't much time to understand how much guilt the Vanir man carried for having left his two closest friends, his pseudo family behind. It is clear that he blamed himself and berated himself for leaving them behind to deal with the goddess of death.

The Avengers gather near to the Vanir resistance leaders. Dorany is the worse off, blood painting her clothes, but no massive, life-threatening injuries. Syvlk is bruised and battered but barely bloody. The two look ragged, as if they have faced an army of titans. "What happened?" Bjern is asking them. "When I left you, Dorany was dueling Hel."

Syvlk is panting heavily, his hair slicked back with sweat and dust. Dorany is as calm as ever, her hair flowing around her. "Clairvoyant reinforcements arrived," Dorany tells them succinctly. "They are keeping her at bay for now. Glad to see Bjern got to you in time to help us. She's powerful. Far more powerful than we can match."

"What is she after?" Steve asks, shifting seamlessly into commander mode.

Dorany looks at him with fathomless eyes, her face immeasurable sad. "Chaos," she says. "She isn't after anything in particular. She comes to devastate Vanaheim and the last remnants her split soul's legacy. There is not goal," she tells Steve. "She just wants to destroy."

Loki looks at Dorany, his face unreadable. "Is there any part of her left?" He asks the prophetess quietly, watching her face for any hint of her answer.

She takes his face in her hands, a movement that startles them all. Loki reaches up to move her hands away but her grip is solid. Her eyes glaze over and she seems to look past him, off into the rivers of time. Her voice has multiple layers when she speaks. "She will need you before the end, god of stories," she intones, prophecy moving from her lips with a physical weight that settles around him. "Fragments still need to be reunited for a full soul."

Before he can ask what she means, the air around them stills. The dust motes and smoke all stop moving, which is unnatural and strange to behold. There is the scraping of boney joints against rock as dead soldiers creep into view. They do not attack, only stalk closer, circling the Avengers and the Vanir, waiting. They move into ragged ranks, still in the gloom of the ashen air, patient, ready for the arrival of their commander, the woman at the centre of this entire conflict of worlds.

And then the goddess herself appears.

A wave of rainbow light rents the air across the courtyard, at the edge of the ruined arch leading to the devastated throne room. It appears like a slash through the fabric of the realm, seemingly impossible in the air. The edges pulse, a ragged, unnatural wound. It is the same as the Bifrost, technicolor and a whirl of starlight from all edges of the universe.

The seam of her dress comes thru first as one leg materializes in the rift. The black, ragged, fluttering gown precedes her as the goddess of death emerges from the portal, hair nebulous around her. The familiar face cracks in a familiar expression although the expression comes from different women.

"You came," Hel/Jay cocks a hip, "I'm honored."

It is as Thor described, but more chilling in reality than anyone of them could have thought possible. It is Jaycee's face, but more angular and perhaps ten years older. Although none of the Avengers ever met Sigyn, this must have been what the Vanir queen looked like. Her long hair is wavy, dark underneath and icy white on top. It moves of it's own volition, an extension of her body. Her eyes are a shocking bright green, the green of a poisonous Granny Smith apple or grass that is beginning to shift towards a sickly yellow. The double swords are sheathed against her thighs, the chains wrapped around her wait. No one has any illusions about how fast she can wield those blades. Her forearms, lower legs and ribs are bone, the flesh peeled away to show gleaming white. While Hel was perfectly symmetrical in an obscene way, this variant is half flesh and half dead, but in a different way.

She waits for them to finish appraising her, a decidedly wicked half-grin on her face. She even goes so far as to twirl a white lock around her slim, dexterous fingers. "Like what you see?" She asks, running her tongue over her top lip. "Don't be shy. Tell me how glorious I am." She spreads her hands wide.

"What have you done to Syvlk and Dorany?" Bjern demands, more angry than anyone has ever seen him. He's also the first to engage Hel because he has seen her before, knows that his queen has fallen to this maniac.

Hel/Jay turns her haze to him, her white hair lifting off her head to form an obscene corona behind her head. "Sweet Bjern," she coos, taking slow, measured steps in his direction. "She liked you, you know," Hel says, letting a little vulnerability to seep into her mocking tone. "Regretted trying to seduce you and make you help her free the trickster." She scoffs, her hair sweeping to one side in dismissal. "So soft."

"You told the truth for once," Steve breathes and it takes Loki a moment to realize Steve is talking to him.

"I do that quite often," Loki murmurs, "And yet everyone always seems surprised by it."

Hel/Jay's face swivels over to regard the two of them. "Ah," she puts her index finger on her bottom lip, opening her lips marginally. "Lover boys," she smiles.

Steve meets her eyes, trying to determine if Jay is in there somewhere. Hel watches him with a condescending look which says that she knows exactly what he's thinking. If Jay is in there, if she's still fighting, then Hel can read his mind as easily as she could. Watching her interaction with Bjern, it is clear that she still has at least Jay's memories. He doesn't want his hope to blind him to the unpleasant reality that Jaycee herself is most likely gone, only remembrances now.

"One good boy," Hel singsongs, "One bad." She hums to herself in a considering way. "Love triangle, love triangle, how many sides? What love did weak little Jay hide?"

Stark's hand on his shoulder stops him from taking more than the one step forward he has already taken. "She's baiting you," Tony says calmly, his helmet obscuring his expression. Hel looks at Iron Man, dark eyebrows lowering over her narrowed, malicious eyes.

Steve grits his teeth. "We're going to need damage control," he informs Tony. "Her army is leveling Clarrappidium."

Stark nods, the metal servos on his suit whining in preparation. "Have Clint and Natasha evacuate the Outskirts. The Vanir resistance can help with that. Dorany can gather the clairvoyants.," he says. "The Hulk can take care of cleaning up her army. That leaves, you, me, Horns and Thunderstruck to take on… Hel. When Dorany gets her warriors together, we may have a chance to subdue her."

Rogers nods. Having heard Tony's conversation with hi over the comms and seeing Roger's nod of assent, Clint and Natasha are already moving and Bruce shrugs out of his shirt in preparation. Dorany nods at them, having heard Steve and issues orders to Syvlk and Bjern, leaving no room to wonder who would commands the Vanir resistance. Hel watches them lazily, giving them time to get organized, letting them prepare. She even goes so far as to admire her own reflection in her sword.

"Are you ready yet?" She asks, stretching her back and they watch in fascinated horror as the bones in her spine and ribs shift without skin to cover them. "I haven't had a chance to test out what this body will do in a really interesting fight." She feigns a yawn. "I'm not getting younger."

Thor is the first to charge. Loki unsheathes his daggers and follows, magic sparking across his fingers. Iron Man locks and loads several rounds of bullets and Steve unslings his shield and sprints towards her.

Hel smiles, lips wide from her gleaming white teeth. She laughs, "Finally!"

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

It's four on one and they are losing. Badly.

Bruce, Clint and Natasha are holding back the armies of the dead pouring thru the Upper Rine, helping Bjern and Syvlk get the Vanir to safety. It was a quick, tactical move on Steve's part but now he's regretting not having the Hulk with them to fight Hel. It's Loki, Thor, Tony and himself against the goddess of death and she is soundly and roundly putting them to shame.

It is as if Hel has taken all of Jay's restraint, thrown it out the window, and strapped down into her powers and recklessness. Combined with her own power over the Bifrost, Jaycee's telekinesis is brutally effective as she can now move herself and objects both thru space and time. She has an intuition of what they will do next, most likely Jay's telepathy at work, although she doesn't seem to have as good of control of it as Jay did. Still, even without the telepathy, she is a molten explosion of movement. That they can barely keep up with.

It's also strange to be working in – well, not in harmony, but quasi-harmony – with Loki. Steve still doesn't know how the trickster got out of the Iron Legion suit, but he isn't about to complain now. Loki is a master of illusion and so far, has been the best at getting close enough to Hel to even phase her. There is no plan right now for subduing her and that's really bad because it's starting to look like the chances of doing that are really small. What do you do once you've captured the psychotic woman who rules the dead and is holding the soul of the woman you love hostage to her mind? This is not a philosophical question that has ever been asked before.

He doesn't have any more time to ponder as Tony goes sailing backwards through a rainbow slash in the sky and comes flying out thirty stories above the demolished throne room.

Thor throws his hammer at her while she turns to battle one of Loki's constructs, a duplicate of an Aesir berserker warrior. One-handed, Hel slices clean through the construct's legs, hamstringing him and then slitting his throat. With a twirl of her fingers, she opens a small rainbow portal that swallows Mjolnir. She turns to flash a grin at Thor, blood streaking her hair. "Fetch," she mocks and Mjolnir pops out of a portal, somewhere across Vanaheim.

Busy summoning Mjolnir, Thor is distracted, and Hel looks up at Iron Man, who is controlling his descent above her and firing a swarm of mini-missiles at her. Hel spins, sweeping her leg out in a long, slow circle and shoves the missiles towards Steve, who barely has time to get his shield up. As it is, the concussive blasts on the vibranium throw him off balance. He stumbles back, Tony landing at his side.

"We need some strategy here, Cap," Stark says. He aims a double-handed repulsor blast at Hel/Jay. The goddess dances out of the way, swords swinging at Loki, who uses another magical construct to fend her off. "In case you haven't noticed, we're getting our asses handed to us."

"Duly noted," Rogers replies as Hel opens a Bifrost portal under Thor, sending the god of Thunder through the ground as he swings Mjolnir at her. Thor pops out of the portal and straight into the wall separating the Upper and Lower Rings.

"Ouch," Tony winces in sympathy.

"Weak spots?" Steve asks as he shields them both from a spray of rubble Hel kicks up with her swords. They both dodge as Hel throws a stone door at them, heaved up out of the rubble telekinetically.

"Not many," Tony admits, firing a round of machine gun bullets at her. Loki dives out of the way of another piece of flying rubble and runs over to them, hunching low, as Hel trades blows with Thor, her blades spinning, a deranged sort of glee all over her face. Loki conjures two constructs of Thor and sends them literally flying towards Hel. The goddess meets them with relish, seeming to revel in the challenge being presented to her.

"Any ideas, Horns?" Tony asks as Loki manipulates the illusions.

"Something to disrupt her powers," Loki grits out as Hel kills one of his constructs. The strain of keeping up the illusions is starting to show, his complexion paling, the lines in his face deeper, threatening to become cavernous.

A creaking in the rubble has them turning around to see Dorany returning. There are only five to ten clairvoyants with her, a paltry number to do battle with the remains of their former queen. It is clear from the expressions on their faces that the clairvoyants are sickened and horrified by what has happened to Sigyn's descendant, preserved inside the goddess of the dead, a bastardized version of the woman that once ruled all of Vanaheim. Dorany gives the Avengers a defeated look, knowing that she hasn't brought nearly enough firepower to make a difference against the maelstrom goddess that has just pinned Thor to the ground, a snarl of triumph on her face.

Before she can liberate his head from his body, one of the clairvoyants leaps at her, a wave of fire erupting from the Vanir's fists. Hel growls and turns, edges of her dress flaming, sending her second sword spinning through the air to impale the man as he charges towards her. Her eyes catch sight of the new arrivals and she sneers, but Thor slips out from her hold and slams Mjolnir hard into her leg. Bones snap and give way, but she remains standing, her tibia and fibula completely shattered. Stunned that she hasn't fallen, Thor is unprepared for the second sword to come boomeranging back and slice deep into his arm. She kicks Thor with her mangled leg, adding telekinesis to the strike to send him through a portal and crashing down into the Outskirts.

It is enough of a distraction that Steve can get in close a land a cross on her jaw that would have broken the bones of her entire lower skull had she been human. But as she cracks her neck, her eyes pivoting to face him, he sees it finally, what Loki warned him of. She is no longer human. Nothing of Jaycee is still in there. It may be Jaycee's body, but it is not Jaycee. Hel has stolen her body, made it stronger, more deadly. She meets Steve with a double-bladed overhand strike that actually chips his shield. Her eyes are feral as she punches him back, her strike hard to his gut, her hilt in her hand giving it heft. He can feel ribs snap as he hits the ground.

The clairvoyants swarm her, searching for a weakness. The way she moves to fend them off is a war song. Her swords rip into flesh and any scratch that they may leave on her body is met with vengeance in triplicate. The amount of attackers seems to be effective, as she gives more and more ground, unable to keep them at a distance she is comfortable with.

Loki slips in under her arm and stabs her deep under the armpit. She slaps him so hard the she splits his cheek bone wide, ripping the dagger free with a spurt of red, human blood and buries it in a clairvoyant trying to slash at her unprotected side. Blood gushing from the wound, she rears back and for a moment, Steve thinks they may have a chance of disarming her.

Then Hel breathes in deeply, probing deep into the powers she has stolen and sends out a telekinetic shock wave.

They fly apart, slamming into what remains of the palace, winded and bruised. Several figures do not rise again. Hel stalks towards Loki, the only one moving, her hair a mass of wraiths behind her head. Blood soaks the side of her dress and is smeared in macabre trails across her face. Towering over the trickster god, she looks like the immortal that she is, a bloody avenging demon. Loki is wounded, his leg at the wrong angle, his healing not kicking in fast enough to meet her as she glares at him, unable to stand fully upright to meet her on his feet.

"You insect," Hel snarls at him, then trails off into a laugh. "I wonder how Jay would have felt to watch you die, you filthy coward," she spits. Both of her dragon blades reach for the sky and Steve can only watch, pinned under a slab of wall, the savage gleam in Hel's eyes a death sentence. She will kill the trickster, he can see the resolve, can see Hel has won. But then there is a dim flicker of grey in her eyes, a slight moment of hesitation. Gone in an instant, the swords descend.

Dorany pushes Loki out of the way.

She faces him as she does so that when Hel's blade slices downwards it cleaves into the flesh of her back. The prophetess' eyes flutter wide in shock, arms outstretched to shield the trickster. Loki cannot break her gaze, some deadened instinct deep within him making him watch. Dorany stumbles forward and Hel gives a howl that reverberates across the courtyard, a howl that is equal parts triumph and grief.

As Dorany slumps to her knees, Loki gets a brief glimpse of Hel before catching the fortune teller as she falls. Hel's eyes are … spluttering? There is no other word he can think of for what he is seeing. Her whole body seems to freeze in frames, like a glitching hologram, one figure imposed upon another. Her eyes flicker from sickly green to a much more familiar shade of riverstone grey.

Eyes pure grey for only a handful of moments, Jaycee looks at her hands, blood slick on her words and whispers, "What have I done?"

Then Hel snaps back into place, a sickening, pleased laugh escaping her lips, eyes glowing green. The grey is still flickering in her eyes and her lips crease in a scowl. Having used magic to read minds and recall memories, Loki realizes what is happening. Hel is fighting Jaycee for dominance.

She lives.

The relief of it makes a beggar of him as he falls to his knees. He lowers Dorany to the ground, watching Hel fight with Jay. His attention is divided between the Vanir clairvoyant and the goddess of death.

Relief is replaced with dread as he watches two souls battle within one woman. It is not a long fight, but it is unlike anything he has ever seen before. It appears as if she doesn't have control over her body. One moment she is snarling, sword raised and the next she is wracked by grief, hilt limp in her hands. It's like scenes from a movie, segmented and out of order.

But she is still in there. Jaycee Strong is still in there, still fighting, still trying to balance out Hel. He doesn't let hope rise, he can't. But there is a sliver of something resembling it now lodged inside of him. He stands by his assessment that they cannot separate Hel from Jay: to do so would be folly and most likely rip her apart. But if Jay is still in there trying to balance Hel, then something can be done to remove this bipolar goddess before she slaughters realms.

The Hel is back and livid. "I'll show you what you've done," Hel growls to the prisoner in her mind. She reaches out with those boney fingers that click together and pulls Dorany across the courtyard, through the air, harnessing Jay's telekinesis. One-handed, she squeezes her carpals tight around Dorany's throat. Loki is mute indecision and he sees the Captain and Stark to skid a halt on the edge of the courtyard, afraid to antagonize Hel as her form flickers again.

The three of them watch as Hel and Jay duel for control, Dorany held aloft in her hand, her chest heaving with the effort of managing two warring souls.

"No," grey eyes weep. "I.. won't… let you."

"You are weak, a coward," Hel grits out, green eyes flaming.

"Dorany," Jay chokes out. The prophetess is crying, grief on her face as she looks down at what remains of the Vanir princess. "For… for…,"

Hel sneers. "There is no forgiveness for this Sigyndottir. It's what we have always been. Unforgiven."

Dorany's face is red and she is gasping for air. "Never stop… fighting," she spits at Hel. "Be my queen," she tells Jay.

But green eyes narrow maliciously at her. "I'll be your goddess," Hel snarls and in one small movement, snaps Dorany's neck.

"NO!" The denial comes from Loki and from Rogers but is completely overshadowed by the horrible grief that comes from Jay. Her body slumps to its knees and her hair whips around her, a black and white blur. The strength of the emotion completely forces Hel out for the moment and Jay's head collapses into her hands, her upper body heaving with sobs. None of them can approach, her grief manifesting as a physical cyclone, a barrier around her.

But Hel, mercilessly, pulls on their body's puppet strings and forces them to their feet. There are tear tracks running down her face, Jay's face, but her eyes are malevolently satisfied, all Hel. The goddess, Jay/Hel, looks at each of them in turn. She looks at the destruction she has wrought to the once beautiful palace and down to the screaming and panic in the streets below. She seems to bask in the chaos, the madness and the death, her eyes alive in a sadistic mockery of Jay's former vivacity.

"Not bad for a day's work," Hel grins as a portal thru the Bifrost opens behind her. Iron Man launches himself at her, the only one with a chance of reaching her before she leaves them. Hel backhands him telekinetically with a laugh, sending him flying past Loki.

"Sorry, boys," she swings her swords playfully. "But I've got other places to be," and steps backwards into the rainbow light.


	6. Power in Emotion

They stagger into the Avengers tower, bleeding, bruised and shell-shocked.

Maybe they have grown accustomed to winning, to being the righteous, because not one of them knows what to do with this murderous turn of events. Six superhumans with strength and technology rivaling what the world understands, have not tasted a defeat like this before.

Because they are slow to recover, it is Loki who becomes the leader. Bjern and Syvlk have come through the portal to New York with them and he sends them to the infirmary, the Vanir men giving no protest, Syvlk silent and devastated, Bjern leaking tears that never seem to end. Loki is the one who orders Jarvis to bring six drinks into the room, and the AI obeys because it has never seen Tony looking grateful to be in Loki's presence. Thor cannot understand how his brother is still standing, knowing that it is true, that Jaycee is locked inside Hel, that they are one woman, and that she has just murdered the prophetess who was her adviser and friend. How can he be moving, knowing that she is dying a slow death.

He does not realize he has said that last bit aloud until Loki looks up at him with aged eyes. He has always thought of his brother as young, spry even, but now he sees age on his brother. But he also sees ferocity, ferocity that was not there after he invaded Midgard the first time, ferocity that was not even there when he first met Jay and saved her on the Bifrost. Now there is something gritty and dastardly there too, something that Jay had also.

"That is your problem, brother," Loki says coldly, but not unkindly. "You think in terms of battles, singular events. I think in strategies, wars, and events unspooling over time." His green eyes spark with life, with energy. "You see the death of one woman as confirmation that Jay is Hel and Hel is Jay and that the woman you thought of as teammate is dead." The Avengers are all watching him now, eyes slowly livening. "Despite your profession of heroics and hope, you see the pessimistic side of things. You see the bad that you did not defeat."

He paces towards the window, overlooks the city, sees the sprawl, a map to him, not a sequence of locations. His voice bounces off the glass back to them. "You do not understand that there is more to feel than defeat or grief when you lose a battle. You do not see it as an opportunity."

Steve has finally had enough of Loki's posturing. Steve is one his feet, stalking towards Loki as the trickster turns to meet him. "Enough of this," Steve growls. "There is no opportunity in Dorany's death, no hope to be found in proof that Jaycee is dying in her own head!" His fist shakes the glass next to Loki's head, but the trickster gazes up at him coolly. None of the Avengers have risen, satisfied to let Steve take out their shared frustrations on him.

"Because you are so fixated on the fact that you have lost," Loki spits at Steve, "You fail to recognize what we learned about Hel. You fail to understand what Dorany's death will do to Jaycee, because you are so wrapped up in what it means to your precious reputation!"

The last part is almost a yell, his control slipping. Steve looks ready to strike him, but Loki sweeps an arm to the side and suddenly the table moves, rocking with green light, anger manifest. He turns his back on Rogers, walking away, needing the breathing room. "You are selfish, arrogant, ignorant fools," he says, not caring what they do to him for daring to tell them the truth. Let them lock him up, it has never stopped him before. A one-man mission sounds nice, a change from this idiotic team nonsense. He'll take matters into his own hands.

But the reaction he gets, out of Barton no less, is not what he expects.

Clint's voice is gravelly with unspoken emotion, both sadness for Jay and anger at Loki. Just one word. "Explain."

When no one objects or locks him in another Iron Legion suit, he looks at six pairs of eyes watching him. He does not trust them, does not want their help, disdains everything they stand for. But they have resources he does not, and Loki knows the value of a bargain even if no one else knows they are making one with the trickster god.

"You saw a goddess kill a prophetess," Loki starts. "I saw evidence that there is an internal struggle within that goddess for control of a body that looks like a woman we knew. You saw her snap Dorany's neck," his words are callous but not his tone. "I saw Jaycee emerge in a shattering of grief."

"What does that mean," Steve asks, arms folded, arms bulging under ash stains he has yet to wash away.

"It means that the souls did not merge as Jay though they would," Loki continues. "Jaycee thought that merging with Hel would be the end of both of them, would revert them to whoever she used to be, an amalgamation of souls, not a bipolar mind in one body. That means that something went wrong when they merged. Clearly Hel is the stronger mind, which should have not been the case, as they were two halves of a goddess. That means that something in Jay's soul was missing that day in Niflheim. She was incomplete and is fighting back Hel without her full arsenal. My guess?" His eyes are weary. "She was missing part of Sigyn's soul."

Tony is the first to get it, despite having consumed the most alcohol since their return to the Tower. "You're saying that a piece of Sigyn's soul is somewhere out in the cosmos?"

"That's precisely what I'm saying," Loki says. "Some part of Sigyn is missing, which means that Jay and Hel are not balanced and are not one soul, as they were supposed to be when they merged. They are divergent, pushing each other apart."

"You're giving us hope that we can save her," Natasha says in disbelief.

"No," Loki says succinctly. "I am not. We cannot 'save' Jaycee Strong because Jaycee Strong is only thoughts now, incorporeal strands in her own body. As is Hel. Neither truly has control because they are not supposed to be separate. If we found the missing piece of Sigyn's soul, it would not mean Jaycee wins over Hel. It means Jaycee and Hel merge and become the goddess they once were."

"And who is that?" Stark asks, looking to Thor. The bigger man shrugs.

"I do not know of a missing goddess," Thor says. "But before Bjern arrived to warn us of the attack, we were planning on going to Asgard to research old Vanir stories," his gaze is on Loki when he says 'we'. "Do you know who she was?" He asks his brother. "You must have some idea."

"None," Loki says, and it is the truth. "She is far more ancient than either of us. But she isn't Aesir, that much is certain. Something from before Odin."

"How is that possible?" Bruce asks. "I thought Odin was the All-Father, you know, the first.. dude," he trails off lamely. Loki cannot smother his smirk at the Hulk calling Odin 'dude'.

"There was something before Odin, and there will be something after Odin," Loki says, and it sounds like an ominous threat.

There is a pause and he uses the moment to excuse himself, walking out onto the balcony. He sweeps his cloak flamboyantly as he goes but they are all still digesting what he said. He has rattled them a bit with his voice, dredging up uncomfortable truths, which he was kind enough to let them deal with without his eyes watching them.

The Avengers watch him go, wondering what goddess could be more ancient than Odin.

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For once, Hel is alone in her head.

She had expected rage, fury, grief without bounds. But Jaycee is silent in their shared consciousness, slumped in the chains Hel has bound her with. Hel has become so accustomed to the nagging headache that is the Sigyndottir's defiance, that its absence is like a physical burden lifted. The woman chained in her mind has not made a sound or protest since Hel teleported them away from the desolation of Clarrappidium to the Ice Peaks of Vanaheim.

Hel is not prone to looking at the past in the way that Jaycee is or even Sigyn was. There is no point ruminating on what cannot be changed. There is only the now and the what will be for Hel. She plans, she acts, but she does not waste time or wallow in what could have been. She leaves that to the weaker beings who think it could have been better, more exciting, more of anything. Fools, she thinks. The past cannot be changed, it is and will always be as it was.

In a strange way though, Jaycee knew that. In their shared consciousness Hel can see what Jaycee suffered for the most of her life. She can see what Tyr used her for, can see what Jared Bradlich did to her mind and body, damaging her deeply, a damage that would define a person's life. But Jaycee made strides to become something different, was slowly realizing that what has happened was irreversible and that she was the only one with the power to change who she became. Hel can almost respect her for that. But only almost.

Wondering what Jay is playing at, Hel delves into their mind, looking for the signs that this is some ploy to bring down her guard. The Sigyndottir is a crafty think. She learned well from the trickster. Hel snorts to herself. If she had made a lover out of the Jotun masquerading in Aesir clothes, then Jaycee would be even more interesting.

In their mind, Jaycee is hanging from the chains by her wrists, knees on the metaphysical ground, arms and shoulders straining at the taut bindings. The woman seems not to feel the pain, still and silent, her hair a lank and scraggly curtain over her face. Blood runs down her arms, slicking her wrists and painting her arms in crimson tattoos. She doesn't stir at Hel's presence as she normally would, just stays there, statue-still.

"If I had known how effective her death would have been at silencing you, I would have done it sooner," Hel says callously, plucking the chains holding Jaycee's right arm. There is a brief murmur of pain but nothing more. Hel kneels down in front of Jay, grabbing the woman's chin in her palm, pulling her face up towards Hel's own, bone scarping her skin.

Dull eyes ringed with dark purple bruises stare at her lifelessly. Strands of her coppery hair cling to her sallow skin, a sickly pallor on her face, her hair a muted shade of what it used to be. The woman looking up at Hel is a fragment of Jaycee Strong, a fluttering cut-off of agony, the rest of her vivacity smothered in ash and rubble. Hel chuckles darkly, "Well, I'll be mortal," she pats Jay's cheek with bony fingers. "That really took it out of you didn't it."

The lack of reaction is almost chilling. "If I killed the good Captain, what would that do to you?" Hel muses, something in her wanting to get a rise out of her defeated prisoner. "Would you start to fade away?"

Jaycee doesn't move, no sound coming from her, head bowed once again.

Hel sneers at her. "What about the trickster?" she baits Jay. "If I slit his beautiful white throat wide, would you simply cease to exist?"

Jaycee's eyes flicker briefly but she says nothing, doesn't give Hel a reaction. Hel slaps her with her bony hand, the bone breaking the skin on Jay's face wide, blood dribbling down her cheek like tears. Besides an inhalation of pain, there is no reaction. "You damned mortal," Hel hisses at her. She slaps Jay again. "I'll kill them all, make you watch. And when I'm slathered in their blood, I'll finish you off, you fragment, you ghost."

She stalks away, unnerved at how angry Jay's lack of reaction made her. She is furious. She leaves the bleeding image of Jay behind, rage propelling her on, back under her skin and into the temples of the Ice Peaks.

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"This is on you."

The brunette Norn's voice is a barely controlled hiss of rage. She stalks towards her raven-haired sister, her beautiful, green dress billowing about her. "The prophetess, _my prophetess_, is dead," Verdandi, second of the Norns rails at her sister. "Vanaheim's capital has fallen, Clarrappidium in flames and the so-called heroes you put your faith in were no match for her powers. They have no idea how to find her, blindly reacting in the dark to her machinations." She is so angry she grabs her sister's wrist. "Now do you see what your pacifism has done?"

Athronei, her sister and third of the Norns, meets her passion with calm, cool eyes. "We are Norns, sister," she says, her voice just as passionate as Verdandi's, but far more controlled. "We keep watch over time and space, not only just one realm." She pulls her slim wrist free from her sister's grip. "Your passion for life is in your nature, but we cannot forget that the Balance we provide to the cosmos is bigger than any single realm." She turns her back, staring out towards the stars. "We have to give the Sigyndottir time to balance out her worse half."

Verdandi actually scoffs. "Time?" she replies, incredulous. "Only we have a surplus of that. You are placing your trust in a mortal woman who was abused and experimented on for most of her life. In the balance of probable outcomes, she is more likely to enhance the worst in her. You forget how many stories of righteous vengeance we have witnessed over the millennia."

Athronei sighs, her age slipping through her sagging shoulders.

While Verdandi and their sister Neona, first of the Norns, are youthful, vibrant and forthright with their passion, she is not, cannot be by nature. Athronei is the realist of the lot, the one who understands the full cycle of life lived in this universe. She used to be more balanced herself, less burdened, but all that changed millennia ago when all three of them lost something they could not afford to lose.

Verdandi watches her closely, sensing her mood. "You still believe she can be made whole again," she says in a slow, steady realization. "You still hold some hope that it can be done." She moves to her sister's side, suddenly seeing how that loss, all those centuries ago, truly affected her sister. Athronei has always muted her hope, tempered Verdandi and Neona. But Verdandi never thought that Athronei hoped that the Sigyndottir would prevail.

"Sister," she starts, her fury fading away, replaced with a melancholy. "She was lost so long ago. She has no memory of what she once was, only residual emotion and fragmented recollections." She hesitantly wraps her arms around Athronei, standing next to her. The woman's body feels tired even though they are ageless.

"Don't you remember what she was?" A brief moment of nostalgia colors Athronei's voice. "how glorious it was to be Balanced. I suppose it's natural to forget over time, even expected, but I cannot go a single day without remembering what it felt like." Her eyes are in the distant past. "So, I can't help but wish for some sign, some way of bringing her back. We've grown so accustomed to this life, this existence that is sufficient, but is not enough. But it is not enough, Verdandi. We are so close to restoring her soul and yet we cannot because it takes more than the sacrifice of one mortal life to reBalance the cosmos."

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Stark's comm buzzes and he briefly thinks about ignoring it when he sees "One-Eyed Pissy Sketchball" come up on his retina display. He dejectedly opens the comm line, bracing himself for bad news or the riot act.

"Stark?" Fury's voice on the end of the line is disgruntled. "When were you going to tell me about your unplanned sabbatical to Vanaheim?"

"I thought I got all the paperwork in on time, Mom," Tony retorts.

"Cut the crap, Stark," Fury says. "Is the team all there?"

"Yeah, plus 2 Vanir," Stark says, very carefully omitting Loki.

"You're going to have to relay this to them," Fury says, getting straight to the point. "Jared Bradlich has escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. custody."

Stark swears colorfully.

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Jay surfaces sluggishly from her stupor, cheek dripping crimson, face on fire with pain.

Being only, technically, a soul within a body, her grief felt like a physical thing. She became all emotion, unable to stop her agony from manifesting as a paralytic weakness that left her sagging in Hel's chains, unable to rise until the emotional pain had subsided. Jay was dimly aware of Hel mocking her, trying to get her to react, opening her face with her bone hand, but the grief of feeling her own hand snap Dorany's neck, momentarily broke her.

She is fighting now, trying to remind herself to stay alive inside her own head. She owes that to Dorany.

She is lucid enough to know that Hel has brought them to the Ice Peaks. She cannot fathom why Hel has come here. She would expect the enraged goddess to go after Midgard next, to make good on her promise to kill Steve and Loki. The thought makes Jay retch, bile hot in the back of her throat. Her inability to do any damage to Hel's presence in her head is making a headache bloom behind her eye socket. And then the anger builds.

Fury overwhelms her, unlike anything she has ever felt before. Jay has been angry, scarily angry at the injustice she has experienced in her life. Has felt red bleed her vision as she watched Bradlich insert the needle into her elbow crease. She has wanted, yes, she will admit it, to wrap her hands around his throat and squeeze until he grovels at her feet. Every prisoner needs a mission of vengeance to help them survive parts of their incarceration. But never before has she felt the kind of fury that burns her up inside, sets her body on fire, splays her hair wide with electric energy, makes her eyes bleed angry tears and rips from her throat in a wall of flame and force.

It's intoxicating.

Suddenly, she can see through Hel's eyes. Well, through her own eyes, she supposes since it's her body that decayed. Hel seems to have no inkling of what Jay is doing and it makes her ebullient to know that, even if for a brief moment, she can see the world again. The fury gives her clarity of sight and she peers out, behind Hel's soul to see the temple in the Ice Peaks.

Momentarily confused, Jay loses her grip on her vision. It takes her a moment to bring back her fury and when she does, she can see the very temple where she learned about Hel and Sigyn's duality. Apparently, vicious hate is giving her the power to manifest in her own body. A long time ago that would have unnerved her, made her question her morality. Now? Now she's not so sure she cares all that much as long as she quasi-lives.

She can hear her own voice coming out of Hel's vocal cords. Jay can feel the sound reverberating in her throat but cannot control it.

"Blasted temple," Hel mutters, kicking an ornamental sculpture out of it's mountings. "Blast Sigyn," she growls, flinging candles across the room with Jay's telekinesis. "One last trick, you righteous, holier-than-thou, blasted fiend!" A telekinetic pulse ruptures ever obsidian sculpture, each hand-crafted work now no more than a handful of ash.

Jay watches and finds herself bleeding into Hel's rage. Their combined fury would be enough to level this entire dormant mountain. She wants to revel in its destruction.

"One last missing piece of your soul!" Hel shrieks. "And it's not HERE!"

Jay's part of their brain kicks into overdrive, wrenching her from behind her own eyes and slamming her back into her battered metaphysical body. The realization plows into her with shocking clarity. The world around her goes crystalline, every edge sharp, every surface suddenly reflective, a physical manifestation of her state of mind.

Her soul was not complete. Part of Sigyn was missing from her. Hel thought it would be here. It is not.

Hope is a boggart inside of her, a pounding in her chest. She doesn't want to believe it, cannot allow that much energy to suffuse her after what feels like an eternity of agony. But it's possible, by the Norns it is possible. She will never be Jaycee Strong again, she knows this.

But now there is the possibility of something more. The fury building inside her again is like molten magma now that she has purpose again. Jaycee Strong was not completely Sigyn.

Which means that part of Sigyn's soul is out there. Hel wants to destroy it because without it, she will eventually destroy Jay completely and they will be out of balance forever. But if it was reunited with her…

She becomes more. She rebalances the cosmos. The anger simmering inside her brightens into the gas flares from a dying sun. She is dying in here, changing into something she doesn't recognize. But maybe that is a good thing because Jaycee wasn't enough to defeat Hel. If she leans into the fury, harnesses it like her telepathy, then the ends justify the means. Good little Jay has no place in the future that must be.

Resolved, Jay starts deconstructing her own morality to allow the darkness she has hid for years to seep into her blood.


	7. And I Darken

Out on the balcony overlooking New York City, Loki gives a long-suffering sigh and says, "Don't lurk Thor. You're so much better at looming."

He crosses his arms and turns to face Thor. The god of thunder has a bashful look on his face, caught in the act of trying not to disturb Loki. Loki came out here to get away from the cloying, goody-goody atmosphere a room full of Avengers exudes, but he'd guessed, Thor being Thor, that his former brother would follow him. At least he got a couple of moments alone with his thoughts before Dark and Brooding cornered him to try and talk about his feelings.

"We're not doing this," Loki warns Thor, a disgruntled look on his face.

Thor gives him an innocent smile. "Not doing what?"

Loki gives him a look and turns back to the skyline. He leans on the railing, looking not at the cars below, but at the hazy sky with the stars hiding behind the smog. Such a polluted teeming mass of humanity lives in this city and the result is a city where starlight doesn't reach human eyes anymore. It makes him even more disgusted with Migardians. He's not sentimental but having traveled past galaxies and nebulas that challenge the imagination, he doesn't understand a world that willfully corrupts its own view of the stars. He's not sentimental.

But she was. They both were.

He rams that thought down, hard. He will not think of them, not with Thor at his shoulder, wanting to talk about her, that stupid woman who has become a nightmare of memories. They are starting to blur in his mind too, Sigyn and Jace. No longer one woman, but one potent ghost.

He realizes he's angry with her. From any one else's perspective, his anger is irrational, but Loki decides that it is completely justified. She made a decision to be a damned hero, to be all brave and goddessly, and didn't consider or understand the fact that it would destroy his mental clarity. Damn her for messing with his brain. How his head is a cesspool of emotions he has no desire to indulge in. He may have been very objective when telling the Avengers off, but if Steve had gotten any closer, he might have quite literally bitten his ear off. Well at least an earlobe. And they needed a good telling off anyways.

If Thor doesn't back off, he might just lose some cartilage. His brother is looming at his back. Loki knows it is in Thor's nature to want to touch him to comfort him and a memory of Thor consoling him when they were children rises unallowed into his head. He shakes it off. Pesky memories.

"There's nothing to say, brother," Loki says at Thor comes to stand at his side.

"Loki," Thor says softly. "You've never talked about this. Your knuckles are white on the railing." Loki unclenches his bloodless fingers irritated. "And you push me away. If you never say what you have to about her, you'll never be free of it."

Loki scoffs. "It's a plague," he says humorlessly. "She's a bloody swarm of locusts up here." He taps his temple with one long finger. "Why would I unleash that on the world?" He asks sarcastically.

"So you'll be the hero and contain it all?" Thor shrugs, arms up, a half smile on his face. Loki wrinkles his face in disgust.

"Pah," he growls. "Heroics are not my style."

"Then talk to me," Thor says.

"No," Loki's reply is curt and emphatic.

"Well now you're just being obstinate," Thor snorts.

"Damn straight," Loki says and can't help the smile that lifts the corners of his mouth when Thor laughs. "Where did you learn a word like 'obstinate'? Did you steal Rogers' dictionary?"

"Oh. Loki," Thor sighs, still sparking with humor. "The two of you would have been so formidable together."

There is a beat of silence as the laughter fades from the moment.

"Frigga would have welcomed her with open arms, you know," Thor says, turning to lean his back against the railing. "Father wouldn't have been happy, but then he never was where Vanaheim was concerned." It takes Loki a moment to realize he means Sigyn and not Jay.

"You,… you knew?" Loki thought he'd kept his love for Sigyn a deep secret, never spoken of, barely acknowledged, even in his own mind.

Thor looks at him sideways. "You may not want to acknowledge what we were in those days, but I knew you better than almost anyone." Loki looks at the city, not wanting to see the sympathy in Thor's eyes. "I'll admit I didn't know what it was at first. You had this fervor about you, stronger than normal. You were practically crackling with energy. I thought it was ambition or our father's praise. I didn't piece it together until later."

Loki takes a deep breath to calm the sudden increase in his heartbeat. "When did you know?" There's a little heat in his tone but his voice is still quiet.

Thor watches him for a moment. "The day she vanished."

"The day she married that monster." The railing actually snaps under Loki's double-fisted grip.

"I didn't know until after," Thor says. "You played your part, mask in place, so well that day. Tyr mocked her and you didn't flinch. But in the chaos when she vanished… Loki, I've never known you to grieve," Thor whispers. "You looked like she stabbed you through the heart."

"She did," Loki says, no anger, just blankness in his tone. "Not literally, but the blade went in, sure enough."

They are silent for long moments. Then Loki looks at Thor with something new in his eyes. Not friendship or anything nice. But maybe appreciation, is grudging.

Thor catches his look, knowing the heart to heart that wasn't is over, the moment passed. He rolls his shoulders back with forced playfulness. "Ready to go see Mom and Dad?" he asks with a goofy grin.

Loki groans in abject horror.

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"You're squinting again," Stark smacks Bruce on the shoulder with a wrench.

"Ow," Bruce mutters, rubbing his shoulder indignantly. "Uncalled for."

"Stop squinting then," Tony fires back. "Your eyes are so narrow you'd think you were inside a tornado."

Bruce raises an eyebrow. "Not your best quip, Tony."

"I know, I know," Stark says. "Give a genius a break."

Banner regards him placidly. "You're worried about Jaycee."

Tony expertly dodges the statement. "You heard Loki. There isn't a Jay left inside that…. woman we saw on Vanaheim."

"Tony," Bruce sighs. "For all your 'I'm a sarcastic playboy' projected persona, I know you really like her. It's natural to hold out hope she's still fighting inside."

"She is," Tony says. "We saw her. And that's the problem." Bruce regards him quizzically. "If I know she's in there, no matter how small a part of Hel she is, then all I can think of is how much each of our solutions will hurt her."

Banner watches him. "You've come up with an idea how to stop her."

Tony sighs. "Damn it, Bruce, I prefer being the only smart person in the room."

"So, you concede I'm smart," Bruce rebuttals to lighten the mood.

Stark grins. "Passably."

Bruce whacks him with the wrench in retaliation. "Spill it, you over-dramatic B-grade engineer."

Tony quirks an eyebrow at him. "Now that's a Jaycee quip," he says with a grin, even though his eyes are sad. "You two are not allowed to hand out together if we get out of this one alive." Bruce waits patiently. Tony picks up a slim circlet of metal from the workbench. "Remember the ultrasonic pulse bracelets we used to subdue Jaycee when we first came across her?"

Luckily Banner is really smart because he realizes what Tony plans without an explanation. "You think the pulses will hurt Hel more than Jaycee?" He asks.

Remembering Jaycee's face when they shocked her with the ultrasonic pulses, Tony grimaces. "I'm hoping it will blindside Hel. She may have access to Jaycee's memories but I'm betting that she won't think that Jay's time before Vanaheim will be useful to her. So she won't be expecting the pulses."

"Do you think we could contain Hel with the pulses?" Bruce asks. "Hel with Jaycee's powers flattened all of us. If we're wrong…"

"I'm not sure we can contain her ever again," Stark says, realistic as always. "But I would wager that it will surprise her enough to get enough information from Jaycee about how we can deal with her once and for all. Jaycee may have been susceptible to the pulses, but I would bet money that she will see what we're after and brace herself or let Hel take the majority of the pulse. Don't forget, Jay is savvy."

"You think she knows how to defeat Hel?" Bruce asks.

"Defeat," Tony rolls the word sarcastically on his tongue. "Gods when did we become those kind of people? Constantly defeating bad guys?" Banner shrugs. "I think Jaycee is the only person who knows what Hel is thinking. Even if Loki thinks they cannot be separated, there are two different people in that body, I've seen evidence of that myself. If we use the ultrasonic pulses to split them apart, even for a couple of moments, Jay might be able to break through and tell us how we can stop Hel."

"But you're worried you could severely hurt Jaycee within Hel," Bruce states, reading the answer from Stark's face. "Do you consider that an acceptable sacrifice."

Tony rubs a hand along his chin. "I don't know," he concedes. "But I know it would be an acceptable sacrifice to Jaycee."

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With the tinkling chime of broken glass, Hel teleports herself back to Niflheim. Clarrappidium in flames? Check. Dealing with the small possibility that Sigyn's soul is missing a part and could colossally screw her plans? Hel strangles the first minion who rushes to greet her.

_Charming_. The Sigyndottir's voice scrapes behind her eyes, a lot stronger than it should be considering her previous catatonic state. Hel gives a tug on Jay's mental chains. The mortal woman laughs.

Laughs like Hel has told the best cosmic joke ever.

Something is wrong.

Hel dives deep into her mind. Jay is waiting for her.

"What have you done?" Hel snarls. Jay smiles at her from under her sweaty, ragged curtain of hair, a smile Hel has seen before, but only in the mirror. Strong shows her canines. The muscles in her left arm bulge, veins rippling over raw muscle fiber. With a shatter, the chain links on the pillar pop clean out of the marble and Jay lashes the chain as a blur, straight for Hel.

The blood slicked metal coils around Hel's throat before she can react. Instinct has her hands grasping for the chains, as Jay snaps it taut with a satisfied growl, the links digging into the bones of Hel's neck. The Sigyndottir doesn't have much leverage, with her other arm still bound, but she doesn't seem to notice it. Some primal, brute force is driving her, the light in her eyes so bright that her irises glow. There is a second where Hel actually experiences terror, looks at what she is creating and actually worries.

Hel breaks the chain with a thought, shreds of metal winging at Jay, shrapnel embedding in the exposed skin of her stomach. She reels back, blood oozing over her pale skin. She wipes a smear of blood from her lips. She looks up at Hel from under dark lashes, a smoldering gaze heated by anger finally unleashed. She grins her lopsided grin, head cocked raptor-like.

"You insufferable migraine," Hel hisses. "You have no idea what I can do to you in here. I will break every bone in your body, repair them and then break them again."

Jay's grin widens and she watches Hel silently. Dares her to do her worse with her eyes alone. _Bring it on, you bitch, you still won't win._

Furious, Hel grabs Jay's telekinesis and rips Jay's arm out of its socket.

Jay can't stop her scream as her arm flops uselessly against her side. She chokes on the next one, swallows it. She spits out a mouthful of blood and looks up at Hel. Reaching out, she grabs her telekinesis back from Hel and shatters the chainless pillar, spraying Hel with jagged shards of rock.

Stunned, Hel regards this new version of Jay with something bordering on respect. Sigyn was never this vicious and power coming at her now is all from Jaycee Strong. The haggard demon coming at her now has a viciousness in her eyes that Hel had not thought Jaycee was capable of. The mortal woman's eyes are both dead and violently alive at the same time, a transformation starting. Hel flicks the shards away with a thought and bares her teeth at Jay.

With an uppercut, Hel drives a stalagmite of thin stone up through Jaycee's foot, pinning her in place. The woman silently gasps, eyes wide with pain. "You know nothing of psychic manipulation," Hel sneers at her. She sends a spray of needle-sharp rocks slamming into Jay's abdomen. The mortal woman bends double, blood slicking the front of her body. "You have no chance of winning this fight."

Jaycee looks up at her, face a mask of pain. One arm chained to a pillar, the other limp, torn from the socket, one foot skewered, holding her in place, stomach a mass of lacerated flesh. "Maybe," she rasps at Hel. "Maybe…. Not today."

"What did you say?" Hel seethes darkly.

Jay staggers hallway to upright. "I won't win today," she says through a throat raw from screaming. "Nor will I win tomorrow," she concedes. "But I will fight you today. And tomorrow. And every day until the end of eternity. Because one day?" Jay grins at her, blood on her teeth from biting her tongue. "One day I'll be stronger than you."

Hel's rage manifests as a physical thing. A firestorm rushes around them, searing Jay's skin while leaving Hel untouched. Jaycee's eyes tear and she can feel her body burning but she doesn't break eye contact with Hel, not until unconsciousness claims her and she topples over, body a ruin on the stone platform.

Hel looks at her disdainfully although truthfully, she is rattled. Jay's proclamation could have been seen as a heroic speech, but Hel knows better. Jaycee had the look of a woman with nothing left to lose and that is a dangerous woman indeed.

Hel withdraws from her head and stares out across her throne room on Niflheim.

She's going to have to move up her plans for Midgard.

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With the dust cleared from the old laboratory rooms under the skyscraper, Bradlich can feel his imminent confrontation with Jaycee Strong inching closer.

He surveys the rooms, the operating tables and surgical implements blazing bright under the harsh electric lighting. He remembers spending hours in here, carrying out Mr. Tuesday's work. Bradlich never knew the particulars of the Victory project, but he knew it involved not only Jaycee Strong but whoever her predecessors were also well. Tuesday was always secretive with that part of his plans. Even still, Bradlich had learned that the tests on Jaycee were not the only thing Mr. Tuesday had desired.

Beautiful Miss Strong was bait.

Bradlich didn't know who for, had never been privy to that information. But whoever Tuesday was trying to catch had been amazingly stubborn. Bradlich can't help but feel admiration for that mystery person who never gave in and tired to rescue Jaycee. Bradlich doesn't have any regrets about what they did to Jaycee; he enjoyed it far too much. But a weaker man's conscience would have overridden his loyalty to Tuesday, a weaker man would have set Jaycee free, would have cared that the lure was dying, and the catch wasn't coming.

Bradlich can see those memories superimposed over the empty room now, ghostly images of the time he spent here with his most intriguing test subject. Jaycee had fire in her, such a childish variation of right and wrong as he experimented on her. She never actually did give up, Jared muses, never stopped railing against him, spitting in his eye, screaming herself hoarse. He smiles. A feisty one indeed.

Now the room is empty, but ready.

Bradlich heard the whispers in the S.H.I.E.L.D. prison. Jaycee Strong, the newest Avenger, heir to an alien kingdom, fallen to Hel, Mr. Tuesday's mistress, in a great battle, is now returned as the goddess of destruction. Not much information to go on, but enough to tell him it was time to initiate his escape plan. Now he's here, rebuilding Mr. Tuesday's last project, intent on learning Tyr's last secret. Who was he using Jaycee to lure in?

He'll have to steal himself a goddess to find out.


	8. Matrilineal

Leading the operation on the front lines has never been Bradlich's style. He prefers to give orders from a central command centre, scotch in hand, decisively guiding a mission. However, with his strike force smaller than he'd like, he needs his own boots on the ground. Plus, it's always nice to threaten the one-eyed director of S.H.I.E.L.D. to his face.

Bradlich and his team have already breached S.H.I.E.L.D.'s preliminary defenses and are working their way floor by floor to Director Fury's office on the fifth level. His men are brutally efficient, chosen for their ability to kill without question of remorse. He strides through the halls behind them with the posture of a conqueror, arms behind his back, even whistling a little tune.

S.H.I.E.L.D. is losing its touch. This is too easy.

On the fifth floor, mindful of a trap, Bradlich stops his strike force in the hall. He plants his feet wide and faces the office door at the end of the hall. "Director Fury!" he barks. "I'd like a word. Can you fit me in your calendar?" He sneers.

There is a pause, then the sweep of a long, dark, trench coat as the man himself opens the door at the end of the hall. One dark eye glares at him, hands on his hips, the intimidating director of S.H.I.E.L.D. "Ah, Mr. Jared Bradlich," Fury calls to him. "I was wondering when you were going to make your grand entrance. You're in luck, my afternoon appointment cancelled."

"It's not as soon as I had hoped for," Bradlich calls back, approaching him with measured steps, his men following. "Your prisons aren't as air-tight as you'd like to believe."

"I'll make a note of it," Fury says, not budging an inch as Jared closes the distance between them. "You're more than welcome to test the upgrades when they're finished."

Toe to toe with Fury, Bradlich smiles a smile Hel would be proud of. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way," he tells Fury nonchalantly.

"Did you practice that cliché in front of the mirror this morning?" Fury asks.

In the span of a blink, Bradlich's hands are around fury's throat, picking the taller man clean off the ground. Fury's one eye bulges in surprise. "Every day," Bradlich sneers. Still holding Fury up with supernatural strength, the director choking, hands reflexively trying to pull Jared's hands away, Bradlich pushes the door open and enters Fury's office. Inside, he throws the man across the room.

Fury lands in a heap on his desk, looking at Bradlich with wary incredulity. "Been experimenting on yourself?" Fury croaks, throat bruised.

Bradlich stalks towards him, looking at his hands in a mocking way, flexing the muscles in his arms. "What, this?" he asks and picks up a chair, twisting it in half as easily as spinning a top. "This is just the start," he confides to Fury, grabbing the man by his coat lapels. "Just enough extra juice to give me an edge when I'm pursuing something I really, really want."

Fury looks up at him, disgusted. "I'll ask the easy question for sake of moving the dialogue along. What do you want?"

Bradlich's grin is ghoulish. "Lucky for you, something very simple." He throws Fury into his desk chair, behind a computer terminal and comes to stand behind him. "I want you to contact your little band of misfits so they can tell me where the lovely Jaycee Strong is. Or should I say Hel? Oh, and to announce my presence to divide their attention. Make them worry. You know, the usual evil mastermind delivering threats schtick."

Fury snorts. "Done with your soliloquy yet?

Bradlich very slowly contracts his grip on Fury's shoulder. "Play nice, Director," he says as Fury hisses in pain as the bones in his shoulder start to break. "Don't I get one phone call?"

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With all of her undead soldier's lined up and the Bifrost portals waiting for them to activate them, the last preparation for the attack on Midgard is to examine Jay's memories for the Avenger's weaknesses.

Hel sinks into her mind, preparing herself to once again do battle with the Sigyndottir. The little pest was slow to heal after their last encounter, not as adept as Hel at healing her own mental construct. Jay was unconscious in her own mind when Hel left her, a strange state to be in given they are both part of each other's consciousnesses. Jay's presence flatlined briefly and for a moment Hel experienced elation at having finally removed Jay from her head. Then the woman had come painfully back to life, her entire part of their brain one big ripple of agony that even Hel could not block out.

Hel finds Jay reclining on a slab of rock they upended in their last battle, looking like a vegetable patient in a hospital bed. Jay's face is all bruises and her exposed stomach is a molted mess of purple and yellow flesh. The stone is gone from her foot and her shoulder is back in its socket, but the trauma of those injuries is still not fully healed. Jay regards her through two puffy, fading black eyes.

"Ah, nurse," Jaycee slurs with a mocking smile. "You forgot my Jell-O. And the IV bag is empty."

"Humor," Hel scoffs. "It's a wonder you still have any left."

"Vitriol," Jaycee retorts. "It's a wonder you have so much."

Hel stalks towards her. Jaycee doesn't flinch. Instead she bends one knee and crosses it over the other extended leg nonchalantly. She rests on her forearms, and tilts her head, regarding Hel with a lazy smile. She shifts her weight so she's comfortably reclining. "Just give me a minute to settle myself," she tells Hel. "I sense a litany of threats coming and I need to get situated. Would you believe how lumpy these pillows are?"

Hel's boney hand closes around Jaycee's throat, pinning her to the slab but the woman underneath her doesn't struggle, just passively lets Hel increase the pressure on her windpipe. When Hel bares her teeth in a dinosaur smile, Jaycee smiles back, just as ferociously. "Are you losing your touch?" Jaycee sneers, glances pointedly at Hel's hand, which is pushing into her trachea but failing to stop the air from coming out of Jaycee's mouth. The pressure increases until Jay's voice is a rasp, but the grin never fades from her face, a manic light in her eyes. "Come on," she goads Hel. "Surely you can do better than that."

In response, Hel bangs Jay's head forcefully back against the stone. The woman gives an involuntary gasp of surprised pain and then laughs, her vocal cords still recovering from Hel's viselike grip. "Really?" she rasps. "That's all?"

Hel tries to quell the rising tide of red hot molten anger building in her chest, knows Jay is goading her on. She has never been on the receiving end of someone's taunting and it incenses her to no end.

Jay clearly knows it too. Despite losing every successive encounter with Hel, she's getting better at yanking her powers away from Hel when she needs them most. Even worse, when Hel was using Jay's telepathy, the little runt was somehow able to open a Bifrost portal. Strong pulled her own powers away from her which rattled Hel somewhere deep. And since the two of them share a mind, Jaycee had known it and reveled.

Jaycee smiles at her now, privy to all Hel's thoughts. "So you do find me just a little bit scary," she coos at Hel.

The goddess of the dead throws her across their mind. Jay slams into the ground with a spray of rock, tumbling backwards. One of her ankles is at the wrong ankle, but she is still grinning when she brings her eyes up to meet Hel's. She conjures vines that spiral towards Hel, but the skeletal goddess shreds them with a flurry of knives that cleave straight thru the construct and skim skin from Jay's arms. Hel's mouth parts in a death grin. "Scared? You're not scared enough, Sigyndottir."

There is blood on Jay's lips as the goddess of the dead stalks towards her. Hel beats back every attack Jay can think to throw at her and she is tiring with each effort.

Hel smiles. "How corrupt your line. Each successive woman a greater perversion of Sigyn. First the rebel goddess of Vanaheim, then her half-breed daughter, your drug-addicted mother, and finally you, a bastardized version of the original with magical mutations giving you endless telepathically induced headaches."

Jay's eyes widen fractionally, and Hel sees her mistake too late. She forgot Jay didn't know her family, barely knew her mother, let alone the line of women before her. In anger, Hel backhands Jay, hard. The woman's lip splits wide. But the damage is already done. Hel accidentally gave Jay a mainline into her past, got that brain of hers working again, thinking of ways to thwart Hel. The goddess of the dead can feel the surge in hope Jay cannot control despite the dark path she has started down.

Despite the blood dribbling down her chin, Jay moves, a series of jerky but fluid movements, using motion to pull her powers away from Hel. With a yank, Jay throws them both into a memory. She isn't recovered enough to catch more than a glimpse of something Hel knows, bit it's just enough for Jay to see who Hel was talking about.

There are a quick series of memories that span across their mind.

Sigyn, older and tired, squaring off against Tyr on what looks like Earth.

A beautiful dark-haired woman standing at the base of a mountain.

Helen Strong, ragged and pale, needlemark scars in the creases of her elbows.

Jaycee herself strapped to a table, Jared Bradlich looming over her.

The rage that comes from Jay on the last one is even more fierce than Hel's own innate fury. The first two glimpses were from Hel but the last two bleed from Jay's sub-conscious. Her hatred of Bradlich turns their collective vision red and for once Hel sees a way to truly break Jaycee.

Hel grabs Jay by the throat and throws her across the ruins of the platform. The woman rolls like a limp rag, limbs useless, still drained of energy. Hel follows up her attack and Jay barely defends herself, the rage of reliving Bradlich and the revelation about her family rendering her reeling, emotionally incapacitated.

Hel leaves their mind when Jay is unconscious again, her body suitably broken so that she will be useless in the coming fight. Stretching her bony fingers, once again the only one in control of her body, Hel sneers at her assembled soldiers. "We move on Midgard," she roars.

The answer is blood curdling, a snarling celebration of the battle to come.

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The spinning rainbow light cuts out and Loki looks around the golden dome, a faintly disgusted look on his face. "Ah, home, crap, home," he sighs wistfully.

Heimdall cocks an eyebrow at Thor. "Handcuffs or no?" he says, pointing his sword at Loki, the lightning fading around them. Thor gives Heimdall a grin and a mock salute and heads for the exit, out to the two horses waiting for them on the rainbow bridge. Loki puts his hands behind his back and slowly follows Thor, facing Heimdall the whole time, walking with exquisite care. The guardian's golden eyes follow him impassively.

"Must get boring," Loki muses. "Standing in the same spot every day."

Heimdall doesn't blink. "I would think constantly being dragged back to Asgard in chains would get old, but then here we are."

Loki accepts the barb with a tiny nod, holds up his hands and mockingly examines them. "Well at least one of us is having fun. Do let me know if the Constanza cluster moves, I have a nice summer home picked out on Venturus Prime."

"Loki, stop antagonizing him," Thor says from the back of his mount.

Loki makes a sullen, childish face. "Yes, father."

Thor raises an eyebrow as Loki swings up onto his horse. "You're no fun," Loki informs Thor. "Can't even let the villain do his thing."

"Do your thing on someone else's time," Thor snaps. Then he thinks about what he just said. And blushes furiously as Loki waggles his eyebrows.

Another horse is galloping to meet them and the former brothers turn to watch, straining to make out the rider. Whoever it is is coming fast, the stallion practically flying across the rainbow bridge to meet them. Thor can see Loki tense up and knows his former brother wants nothing to do with their father or any or his emissaries right now. He can see green light glowing on Loki's finger tips. His concern for Jaycee is deeper than he has let on, because even though Loki is a cold-hearted bastard, he never has his magic at the ready when his silvertongue is ready to negotiate. The fact that he has magic at the ready gives Thor every indication of how wound up his brother truly is.

When the rider reins in, Frigga, takes a look at her two boys, a no-nonsense look on her face. Her curls are held back by a circlet of gold and she is dressed for travel. "Oh don't look do surprised," she admonishes Thor. "I'm the queen of Asgard, which was recently attacked by a perversion of a Vanir goddess that fused with the goddess of the dead. I've already done a lot of my own research. Come with me, I have scrolls to show you."

Without waiting for them to wipe their surprised looks off their faces, Frigga turns her stallion and gallops back towards Asgard. "After you," Loki says and Thor watches the green light die from his fingers. They kick their horses into a gallop, unable to close the gap between themselves and Frigga.

"What do you think she found?" Thor yells over the wind.

Loki looks at him with a very dark look. "If she came out to the Bifrost to meet us, nothing good."


End file.
